The Johto League
by Celebi
Summary: Holly Evergreen is an new trainer just like thousands of others. Except that she understands pokémon speech, her travelling partner is the famous yet abrasive Gary Oak, and for some reason, Team Rocket is intent on tracking her down...
1. A Good Start

I don't own any copyrighted characters, ideas, plots or Pokémon used in this fanfiction.

**The Johto League**

**Chapter 1**

**A Good Start**

It is every pokémon trainer's lifelong dream and childhood fantasy to receive their first pokémon, and their most treasured memory is the day that it happened.

Well, nearly.

I'm Holly. Holly Evergreen, of New Bark Town. You probably don't recognise my name yet, but that's something I want to change.

Like many children, it's my dream to become a pokémon master. And like many children, I received my pokémon training licence on my tenth birthday. But after that, it's a different story.

During my childhood I went to a pretentious junior school full of kids who hated pokémon and their trainers. Not a pokémon school, a proper academic school with more boring subjects than you could shake a Sudowoodo at. The kids weren't abusive, being only children, but they were all obsessed with intellect and thought the idea of travelling around with a team of ferocious beasts at your beck and call was absolutely horrific. Not me though, I wanted to be a trainer, and that was that. I ignored their taunts and left the school at the earliest opportunity to pursue my dream.

Unfortunately, that opportunity didn't come until I was well past my eleventh birthday, and once again, the time rolled around for Professor Elm to hand out the starting pokémon. I could practically feel the freedom of walking the world at your own pace and taking in everything there is to see, but there was another problem.

Ever since I can remember, I've been able to understand the language of pokémon. Not just pokémon I was familiar with – I can grasp the meaning of every howl, grunt, snarl and chirp as if it was plain English. Professor Elm knew about this, just like most people in town, so for the last few years I have been helping him out with important research into pokémon speech and how to translate it. We hadn't managed to get very far, since I had no idea how or why pokémon speech made sense to me, so most of the time I would help him to take care of his three starter pokémon: Chikorita, Cyndaquil and Totodile.

I would keep them happy and amused, teach them about things, and listen to what they had to say. Every time I got home from school I would run straight to the laboratory and spend as much time with them as I could. Then, when the time came, I would watch all three get chosen by brand new trainers and go out into the world. I never stopped wishing that one day, one of those trainers would be me.

But as time went on, I got more used to seeing Chikorita, Totodile and Cyndaquil, and I realised I knew nearly everything about them. I would absorb any pokémon information I could get my hands on, but when it came to the three starters, I could tell you anything you wanted to know. Their types, attacks, type weaknesses, evolution levels, even their average height and weight. And the job of a pokémon trainer is to learn about their pokémon as they travel with them, growing together and understanding each other. What would it be like for a pokémon to be given to a new trainer who could already describe them from head to toe? I came to the conclusion that I'd spent too much time with the New Bark starters – none of them were right for me. I would much rather start off with a pokémon I knew next to nothing about, just as the pokémon wouldn't know anything about me. That's how it was supposed to work. But with the day for Professor Elm to hand out the new starters coming up, what could I do?

'What am I going to do?' I wondered aloud to nobody in particular.

'Honey, what's the matter?' My mum had overheard.

'It's this business about the starter pokémon,' I sighed. 'I'm all confused.'

'Are you having trouble deciding which one to take?' she asked sympathetically, putting her arm around my shoulder. She didn't completely understand the problem, but you couldn't blame her. She was a lovely mum but pokémon didn't interest her very much.

'Why don't you try going out for a walk?' she advised. 'You can get some fresh air and it'll help you think.'

'All right,' I smiled. 'Thanks, mum.'

I stepped out of the house to the sound of Pidgey cooing in their nests and Furret rustling in the grass. Most days I would have stopped to listen to what they were saying, but my mind was too preoccupied this time. I began to wander aimlessly around the small town.

Perhaps, if I could work up the courage to decline the pokémon from Professor Elm, I might tag along with one of the other new trainers just until we reached Cherrygrove City. The next town along was quite small, but they might have some spare starters available for me to pick up. I wouldn't mind starting with a Sentret or Hoothoot, or even a Rattata, as long as it was a pokémon I hadn't been around my whole life.

Then again, would I even have the courage to refuse Professor Elm's pokémon? I stopped walking. I'd known the man for most of my life, and I knew he'd be looking forward to seeing me off on my journey. I didn't want to disappoint anyone.

Feeling frustrated, I looked up to see a beautiful sparkling river. My feet had carried me to the east, where the town stopped and the water began. Watching the water flowing past helped me forget everything for a moment.

'Hey, Holly!' I heard a voice. 'You coming aboard?'

It was a young boy, just older than me, standing on the deck of a large boat. His father ran a service, ferrying people to Tohjo Falls and back on his ship. I walked over to the boy, next to the boarding planks.

'Hi, Marty,' I greeted, 'I suppose a quick trip wouldn't hurt. How much?'

'Oh, nothing for you,' he grinned. 'Aren't you leaving on your journey soon? Take a ride for old time's sake, before you go.'

'Thanks Marty…' I tried to smile back, 'but I'm not so sure about the journey any more…' I walked past him onto the boat.

Marty started rolling up the bridge so the ship could leave. 'Oh, don't worry… I'm sure you'll be fine…'

He was interrupted when I heard a voice yelling from far away, but it was getting closer.

'Wait! Hold the boat!'

Before Marty could bring in the bridge, somebody streaked up the riverbank and tried to push their way on to the boat before it left. I felt something accidentally pull my shoulder and before I knew what was happening, I was dragged over the side of the ship and plunged into the water.

The river wasn't all that deep, but it was certainly cold. Rivers are usually wet, too, and this one was no exception. I struggled to the surface and brushed a curtain of blonde hair away from my face. In the water with me was another boy.

'What did you do that for?!' I exclaimed angrily at him.

The boy pushed his damp brown hair to one side and looked at me haughtily. We both swam to the side of the river, where Marty was standing on the bank, extending a hand to help me out. On dry land I inspected the state of my soaked jeans and dripping hair. The boy who pulled me in seemed irate about the condition of his blue clothes. He shook some water out of his spiky hair and went to walk onto the boat.

'Hey!' yelled Marty. 'Aren't you going to apologise?'

The boy stopped and looked at us. 'I think you should know who you're talking to before you start demanding anything.'

'Oh? And who might we be talking to?' I asked in a sarcastic tone.

'Gary Oak, who just happens to be the grandson of the great Professor Oak. I'm sure you've heard of him.'

Heard of him? Of course I had. Professor Oak was world-renowned.

Gary turned away and walked onto the ship, apparently feeling that he had given an adequate explanation. I scowled after him.

'Don't worry about him,' Marty reassured me. 'Just leave him. Let's go get you a towel.'

'Yeah, okay,' I agreed while looking at where Gary had been, determined to have the final word. 'What a jerk.'


	2. A Promise

I don't own any copyrighted characters, ideas, plots or Pokémon used in this fanfiction.

**The Johto League**

**Chapter 2**

**A Promise**

**  
**  
I had been on the boat trip many times before, even back when I was a small child. Tohjo Falls was a beautiful island. Sometimes I'd boarded the boat just to take a breather from life, sit back and take everything in. There's nothing better than sitting by yourself with nothing more than the splashing of waterfalls to keep you company.

I spent the short journey watching some battles between trainers who had met on the boat. Pokémon battles always interested me, and watching some skilled trainers duel it out made me wish for a Pokémon of my own even more. I wanted to be able to show off what kind of trainer I could be… and without any obstacles yet to prove otherwise, I figured I could probably train pretty well.

Gary was one of the trainers I saw having a battle. I didn't like to admit it, but he was good. Really good. Possibly even the best trainer on that ship. He beat the opponent's Pokémon time and time again with obvious ease, while only ever using one Pokémon. The one he selected for every battle came as a bit of a surprise – it was a sleek, well-trained Eevee. From watching how Gary liked to defeat his opponent completely thoroughly, while looking like it was the easiest thing in the world, I would have thought he'd chose a more impressive Pokémon to show off his taming ability. But no, a cuddly little Eevee was all he needed to quickly earn himself the most coveted reputation on the boat.

Upon arriving at the island I headed for the places I knew were worth seeing: the sheer cliffs, dense forest and the waterfall caves. If I could just find a small, docile Pokémon, perhaps a baby, I might be able to coax it into following me home and accompanying me on my journey.

When I reached the forest I started to look around earnestly for an abandoned, sick or injured Pokémon that might befriend me if I took care of it. It was a small chance, but there was always a possibility that a wild one might actually be looking for a nice trainer. At least, I wanted to believe that it could happen. Just around the next tree would be a baby Vulpix for me to rescue…

But with every tree, there was no Vulpix, or any other Pokémon. The forest dwellers scampered away when I approached and the bird types took flight when they heard me. I was just kidding myself – there weren't any Pokémon on the entire island that would allow me to get close to them.

I was about to give up and go back when I saw something… something on the path ahead! Yes, a Pokémon at last!

I ran over to have a closer look. On the ground was a sleeping bug type – a Caterpie. I was quite sure Caterpie sleep in tree branches, so this one must have fallen down. I gave it a poke.

'Hey there, little Caterpie!' I said with a bright smile as it opened its eyes. 'I think you fell out of your bed. But now that you're awake, how would you like to come with me on my journey to…'

I trailed off. Was I really going to trust my entire future success in Pokémon training to a worm?

Luckily I didn't have any choice in the matter. The Caterpie, irate at being woken up, gave me a face-ful of string shot and squirmed away.

Angry, defeated, and pulling bits of web out of my hair, I stormed back to the dock. Marty's father, the owner of the boat, was there to meet me as I got back.

'Hey Holly, you made it just in time. You haven't seen a boy with brown hair around here, have you? About your age, I'd say.'

Instead of getting on the boat, I paused. 'You mean Gary?'

'Yeah, that's him: Gary Oak. Grandson of Professor Oak, you know! Imagine that, the grandson of a great Pokémon professor, on my own little boat…'

I rolled my eyes. 'Yeah, I know he was here. He managed to push me off the boat earlier.' I went to board the ship before I heard anything else about the Oak family.

'No wait, that's not it,' he stopped me. 'Thing is, he's the only one who hasn't come back. And it's time for us to leave.'

'He… didn't come back?' I repeated, not sure what to think.

'Nope, nobody's seen him at all since we reached Tohjo. You know the rule – once it's time for the boat to leave, we don't hang about for stragglers.'

I shook my head and tried to dismiss the problem. Who cares if we leave Gary Oak behind? It's his own fault for being late. I was about to walk onto the boat when the island's usually tranquil atmosphere was shattered by a sound.

A scream.

I turned around. And I ran.

'Hey, wait!' I heard a yell from behind me. 'We can't keep waiting – the boat has to leave!' but I paid no attention and the voice faded away.

I ran towards the forest, where the scream had come from. I dodged past trees and jumped over fallen logs as fast as I could. A particularly pointy twig scratched my skin as I tore past, but I didn't care. The only thing I could focus on were the questions filling my head: Why are you doing this? Why are you running headlong into unknown danger like a total idiot? And more importantly, why are you doing it for someone you don't even like?

All of a sudden I crashed into a clearing and I stopped running.

'Gary!'

The poor kid was backed against a tree with nowhere to run. Looming over him stood a gigantic male Ursaring. That in itself is nothing short of terrifying, but to make it worse, this Ursaring was enraged to the point where it might even attack a human. It looked as though Gary was unaccustomed to being scared, since he didn't seem to be handling it very well.

Just to make sure we were all sufficiently intimidated, the Ursaring let out a huge roar. It reared up, intending to strike Gary while he was helpless.

I dashed over and stood between the immense predator and his prey, holding my arms out in a protective stance. The Ursaring stopped, looking confused.

'You're not going to hurt anybody!' I said firmly.

The Ursaring leaned forward, growling fiercely. He was arguing.

I didn't flinch. 'Don't hurt him,' I replied. 'We're sorry to have disturbed you. Please, just go on your way and leave him alone.' I kept my eyes visible at all times so the bear Pokémon could see my expression. Little by little, the Ursaring's ferocity seemed to diminish, and he decided to walk away.

I waited until the Pokémon was out of sight, then I turned around to face Gary. It looked like he had frozen in fear. I held out my hand to help him up.

'You…' Gary gasped, 'You saved me…'

'What were you doing over here?' I demanded.

'I don't know, I was looking for new Pokémon to capture, and suddenly this crazy Ursaring started chasing me!'

'That's not what he said.'

'He… wha-what?'

'The Ursaring said you went and disturbed his sleep. He was hibernating.' I explained.

'How could you possibly know that?'

'He told me, all right?' I said angrily, tired of having to explain my little "special ability". 'I understood what he said, and he claimed that you went and woke him up to ask for a battle.'

Gary seemed to be confused and suggestible after the attack, so he accepted that what I said must be true without any persuasion.

'I suppose there's no other way you would know what happened… the Ursaring told you…'

'I don't think it was very responsible Pokémon trainer behaviour to go waking up Ursaring while they're hibernating. I really can't blame him for attacking you.' I immediately felt remorse for snapping at him. The boy had nearly been viciously attacked… I would rather have comforted him, but everything I said came out as blame.

'I don't think it's any of your business!' he retorted. 'I can go around trying to capture Ursaring if I like. Why did you decide to get involved?'

'I was at the boat, and they said…' then I remembered. 'The boat! We've got to get back!'

I grabbed Gary's hand and dragged him after me through the woods, trying to remember the way I had come. Very soon we emerged at the other side and headed straight for the small dock, but when we reached it, nothing was there to greet us.

'Oh no! They left without us!' I gasped.

'Stop worrying,' Gary said, having regained his composure. 'I'll get us a ride back.'

He took a red and white pokéball from his trainer's belt and threw it over the water. With a flash the Pokémon inside appeared, half-submerged but still easily recognisable. It was a large turtle Pokémon, Blastoise. While Blastoise floated in the water, Gary stepped onto its thick brown shell.

'Are you getting on?' Gary said impatiently. I hesitated, but stepped onto the water Pokémon's shell as carefully as I could. Gary sat down and I followed suit, and Blastoise started swimming gently away from the island.

'Wow, your Blastoise is well trained,' I commented, noticing how fast we were travelling while not being in danger of falling off. Did your grandfather give it to you as your starting Pokémon?'

'No, I started my journey with my Eevee,' said Gary indignantly, 'you probably saw him on the boat earlier. Blastoise was the first Pokémon I ever caught though, just after I left Pallet Town. It was a Squirtle then.'

'You've got strong Pokémon, Gary,' I said, trying not to sound accusing again. 'Why didn't you use them to defend yourself against that Ursaring?'

'I don't know! I just saw this cave, and I thought, I bet there's some sort of rare Pokémon in there. So I went in to explore and the next thing I know, this Ursaring is chasing me all over the forest just because I woke it up. I could only concentrate on running. Then I tripped up and had nowhere to run… and suddenly, you appeared.'

I noticed that Gary hadn't escaped unscathed. His elbows and knees were bruised, probably from falling over.

'Why did you do it, anyway?' Gary asked sincerely. 'Why did you jump in front of the Ursaring?'  
I thought for a moment. Why had I abandoned everything to run after that scream? I hadn't even thought about how I was going to get back home, all to help some guy I had, at that point, thought was a stuck up, obnoxious jerk? Why did I stand between that jerk and a vicious, crazed bear? …I honestly didn't know.

'I could understand what the Ursaring was angry about,' I said eventually. 'When it roared I know it didn't want to kill you, it was just upset and cranky because it had been woken up. So I just had to calm it down.'

'So, you really can understand what Pokémon say?'

'…Yes.'

'Huh. I thought people could only understand Pokémon speech if they had formed a special bond over a long time.' He wasn't convinced. Gary seemed to be less agreeable now that he had recovered.

'Well, I can try to prove it to you,' I said defensively, trying to think of some piece of information only those very close to Gary would know. 'Excuse me, Blastoise? What is Gary's middle name?'

Gary looked alarmed.

'Blastoise, toise,' replied Blastoise. I couldn't help giggling.

'Cornelius?! Your middle name is Cornelius?'

Gary tried to deny it, but his scowl told the true story. He had to admit that I could understand Pokémon speech.

'Okay, fine. I believe you. Just don't go around telling everyone.'

Nobody spoke for a while. The only sound was the gentle splash of the surrounding water. I could see the New Bark shore appearing in the distance.

'I bet communication like that would let you become a great trainer,' Gary said after a while.

'I hope so,' I replied sadly, 'but I haven't got my own Pokémon yet.'

'Why not?' Gary sounded intrigued. 'You must be old enough.'

'Yes, I'm qualified and everything… I'm just waiting for Professor Elm to hand out his starter Pokémon to the rookie trainers. But the problem is, I don't want to be given a New Bark starter any more. You see, I've been around those three nearly my entire life…' I explained the entire situation to Gary, about how I desperately wanted to go on a journey, but the starters available to me would be completely wrong as starters since I knew nearly everything about them, and that I felt I needed a challenge. Gary seemed genuinely interested. When I'd finished explaining the situation, he grinned.

'Well, you can stop worrying. Gary Oak has got the answer!'

'What do you mean?'

'As soon as we get back to New Bark Town, I'll help you get a Pokémon myself.'

My heart leapt. A real Pokémon!

'You will?' I gasped, feeling more excited than I had done in days. 'Wow, thank you so much!'  
'Don't thank me, I feel like I owe you,' he shrugged. 'You did save my life, after all. This way, I can repay you. Besides, you remind me of myself, before I started my journey. After helping my grandpa out at his lab so much, he gave me my Eevee because I was so familiar with the Pallet Town starters. Being a new Pokémon trainer is about learning, right?'

I just nodded and smiled.


	3. Surprises Galore

I don't own any copyrighted characters, ideas, plots or Pokémon used in this fanfiction.

**The Johto League**

**Chapter 3**

**Surprises Galore **

**  
**  
As I jumped to the shore of New Bark Town, I felt more excited than I had done in weeks. The grandson of a pokémon professor would help me to find a starter! My dream had never felt closer.

Gary called his Blastoise back into its pokéball. 'So, what kind of pokémon live around here?'

I jumped at the chance to show Gary I knew something about the local pokémon.

'There's lots of Sentret, and Hoothoot… Pidgey and Rattata, and Raticate, if you're lucky. You can see Magikarp and Tentacool swimming in the river…'

'Pah! That's child's play!' Gary seemed unimpressed. 'If I'm going to get you a pokémon it's going to be a bit more impressive than a Rattata.' He sounded convinced that Rattata didn't qualify as a good starting pokémon.

'The new trainers from Cherrygrove seem to get along just fine with them,' I retorted slyly. Gary didn't seem to be listening.

'No… we need something better… something more exotic…' he wondered for a moment, then snapped his fingers. 'I've got it! We'll go back to Kanto. There'll be regional pokémon that you might never have seen before… plus I know the best catching areas like the back of my hand,' he grinned smugly.

'Wow, you… really?' I could sense the signs that excitement was overpowering my ability to speak coherently.

'Sure, I travelled the whole region just last year. I know exactly where to go.' Without further ado, Gary brought out a new pokéball and flung it onto the ground. It burst open and a glowing form appeared that took the shape of a bird – a big one. It was brown, with a long crooked neck, and an enormous wingspan. A Fearow.

'Well, hop on.'

I did a double take. 'What!?'

'I said, get on,' he repeated, already jumping on to the bird's back. I walked over slowly, regarding the bird warily. It gave a soft croak, and I noted that its beak was longer than my own arm. Somehow, I pulled myself up behind Gary and tried to keep my balance.

'We're going to visit my Grandpa,' Gary nudged his pokémon. I'm not sure what surprised me more – the prospect of meeting one of the most famous pokémon Professors in the world, or the fact that Fearow flapped its wings and took off at that moment.

As Fearow climbed in the air, I began to realise that riding a pokémon wasn't easy. But then, when I saw my own house from high above as it got smaller and smaller, flying started to feel wonderful. I could see for miles, and the view was incredible. We flew over the river, a great expanse of sparkling blue, and I could see a new land mass appear over the horizon.

Gary pointed to a spot near the coast, obviously feeling more comfortable with the altitude than I was. 'There it is!'

Fearow's flying pattern suddenly changed, and we swooped down towards what appeared to be a small town. I found it hard to keep holding on and had to grab Gary's back for support. Soon we neared the ground, and Fearow landed in a green field.

'Where are we?' I asked, mystified, while clambering off Fearow's back as quickly as I could. This place was hardly deserted. There were dozens of different pokémon species everywhere I looked, and some hadn't even looked up when we landed. They were definitely tame.

'This whole area is Professor Oak's research grounds,' Gary explained, recalling Fearow. Every trainer who leaves Pallet Town has their pokémon sent here when they aren't using them. In fact…' he indicated a few distant herds, 'most of those pokémon are mine.'

'Really?!' I gasped, starting to realise how successful Gary was. Maybe his snobbish attitude earlier was justified – hundreds of tame pokémon roamed that field, from Ponyta to Magnemite.

'Oh, yes; they're all his,' a new voice said. I turned around to find the renowned scientist, Professor Oak, standing next to us. 'Hello, Gary. I saw you fly down from my window.'

'Hey Gramps,' Gary greeted casually. 'I thought I'd pay you a visit and ask you to help with something.'

'I see,' said the Professor warmly, 'and who's your companion?'

He turned towards me. I felt almost like I should bow.

'Holly Evergreen, sir,' I inclined my head slightly out of politeness.

'Well, come on then, we can't stand out here all day. Let's go inside and talk about this problem of yours. Would you like some tea?'

We started to walk up the hill to the Professor's house, which you could easily recognise because of the large windmill next to it. I quickly realised that the building served as Professor Oak's laboratory, as well as his home, because even from outside you could see complicated, pristine machinery occupying the rooms.

'So, now we're trying to find a more suitable pokémon for her to start her journey with,' Gary finished explaining as we walked through the main doors. The first thing I noticed was that the floor had been polished so much that it shined. The Professor obviously liked to keep his house in order. In this situation I would like to have tried some floor-skating, if we hadn't been in the company of such an important person, discussing serious matters.

'Ah, I see,' the Professor said in an understanding tone, 'you thought I might have a spare starter pokémon for our new trainer, is that right Gary?'

Gary nodded in a questioning sort of way.

'I'd love to help you two,' Oak sighed, 'but there are a couple of trainers due to leave Pallet in just a few days. The current starters have to be reserved for them, and no-one else.'

My hopes for a Pallet Town starter were dashed. I could vaguely recall the kind of pokémon Oak worked with – a fire type, a water type and a grass type, I think. That was all I could remember. I knew next to nothing about them – it would have been perfect.

'Tell you what, though…' the Professor began with a hint of hopefulness, 'there's a pokémon I've been studying for a while that might do the trick. It's something rather special. I wanted to see what might happen if it received some battle experience…yes, this will do…'

He trailed off, busy listening to his own train of thought, and Gary and I followed him. We made our way down a fancy corridor to a section of his laboratory, where many small pokémon cages stood stacked against the wall.

'I rarely ever use these cages,' Oak was explaining, 'only sometimes, when I'm studying a pokémon and it can't be put into a ball, or I don't want it outside with the others…' It didn't look like the pokémon had much to complain about. Each confine had its own food bowl, water supply and a cushy bed for its occupant, but nearly every cage was empty. Oak undid a safety catch on one door near the bottom, one that had a pokémon inside.

I realised I was holding my breath in anticipation. Could this be it? Was my future pokémon partner about to walk out of that very cage?

Something moved, tentatively taking a few steps into the open. Cat-like in appearance, with cream-coloured fur. I remembered the name for it – a Meowth. But something looked odd about the way it moved… I couldn't place it exactly, but something seemed unnatural…

I was about to find out why the Professor wanted to study this pokémon. Nothing had prepared me for what I was about to see.

The Meowth's annoyed expression looked up at us.

''Bout time you let me outta there!'


	4. A Couple of Oddballs

I don't own any copyrighted characters, ideas, plots or Pokémon used in this fanfiction.

**The Johto League**

**Chapter 4**

**A Couple Of Oddballs**

**  
**  
My brain froze. I was totally astonished. After years of listening to pokémon conversation, I had never, ever expected to hear one speaking words.

While I tried to recover from the shock, Gary didn't seem surprised at all. In fact, he was complaining.

'You can't keep him here! That Meowth's a part of Team Rocket! They'll be implementing some sort of scheme to steal all the pokémon!'

'Now Gary, I've told you before - I don't think a pokémon can be bad,' Oak reminded his grandson. 'I found this Meowth, tired and bruised, in a field not far from here, and I brought it home just like I would have done for any other pokémon. I think he tried not to say anything to keep his identity secret, but his mouth didn't stay shut for very long. In any case, I hardly think that having a special gift is reason enough to turn away someone in need.'

'Don't you remember, Gramps?!' Gary sounded annoyed. 'Team Rocket showed up here just a few months ago and tried to steal all the pokémon other trainers keep here! He's just a rotten criminal. I can't believe you would consider giving that kind of pokémon out as a starter!'  
'Team Rocket?' I asked, having re-engaged my brain. 'I've heard of them. That notorious criminal group that's been terrorising Kanto?'

The Professor nodded. 'Yes, but I still refuse to believe that any pokémon can be evil on its own. They can only be directed or persuaded to do such things by heartless people. And I thought this would be an excellent opportunity to research pokémon rehabilitation.'

'One flaw in dat theory,' the Meowth spoke, 'is that I decided to join Team Rocket all by myself.'

I knelt down to get a better look. I'd never seen a Meowth before, but this one looked perfectly normal. Apart from the fact that it stood up on its hind legs like a person. The huge change from a cat pokémon's natural posture scared me a bit. Still, I felt some sort of connection with this strange Meowth. Perhaps, being able to speak and decipher each other's language, we shared an understanding.

'Meowth? How is it that you can speak human language? I've never heard of any pokémon able to do that.'

'I taught myself how to walk and talk like humans do. What's it to you?' he spoke with an arrogant tone, which I hardly noticed, as I was still in awe that he was speaking at all.

'Well, I just… I can understand anything that pokémon say. Even if I've never met them before.'

Meowth lost his attitude immediately and looked up, interested. 'Really?'

'Yeah. I always have. And I don't know why.'

I felt a pang of sympathy for the little pokémon as he scratched his head in confusion. Gary, however, still wouldn't trust him.

'If he walks and talks like a human, I don't see why he couldn't be evil like a human too.' Gary sneered. 'If you joined up with Team Rocket voluntarily, how'd you end up here?'

Meowth appeared to be offended. 'Hey, even the Professor said that pokémon can be misguided. I only wanted wealth and power so people would stop looking at me like an outcast. Is fame and fortune too much to ask for?' Gary snorted. 'I left because I realised that my dream just wouldn't come true. I abandoned the only way of life I've ever known, and the only friends I had. Can't I have a second chance?'

I couldn't wait any more. I prepared myself to ask the question I'd wanted to ask a pokémon all my life.

'Look, Meowth, my name's Holly, and I want to be the best trainer the world's ever seen. The only problem is, I need a pokémon to get me started. As it turns out, it's harder than it sounds. I want you to be my starter. What do you say?'

Meowth paused for a moment, looking reminiscent, as if remembering a long-forgotten dream. Then he scowled and looked away. 'No way. I ran away looking for freedom, not to be stuck in a tiny ball all day at the mercy of some human.'

'But I'm not just some human!' I protested, desperately trying to persuade him. 'I wouldn't keep you in a pokéball if you don't want to. I have great dreams, and we could achieve them together. A life of crime isn't the only way to fame and fortune.'

Meowth glanced up and softened his expression. 'Kid, you've got a lot of spirit. But I'm no fighting pokémon. I can only do two attacks, and since learning to be more like a human put my life as a true pokémon behind me, I can't learn any more. Besides, I hate fighting, and I've probably only won one fight in my life.'

'Ah, so that explains it,' Professor Oak chipped in. 'I got some very abnormal readings when I did some basic status scans. That must have been what caused it.'

'Yeah, that's right,' Meowth muttered to himself spitefully. 'Abnormal Meowth. Meowth the freak. That weird pokémon nobody wants to be with.'

I leaned over to scratch the top of Meowth's head. For a moment I wondered if it was the wrong thing to do, but Meowth didn't protest. In fact, he liked it.

'Well I do. Meowth, you're the most amazing pokémon I've ever met. I don't care if you think you can't fight – I'll start small and work my way up.' I remembered trying to bargain with a Caterpie the other day, and carried on more determined than ever, 'Think about it, you could be part of the best pokémon team ever assembled. We could go from continent to continent, winning our way through leagues. And you'd be famous. People would see you and say, "that's the starting pokémon of one of the greatest trainers who ever lived". I don't just want a pokémon; I need a partner.'

Meowth stopped to seriously think about it. 'Hmm… I left to get a fresh start, after all…heh, why not. I'll do it!'

'You… you will?!' I jumped up, grinning with ecstasy. 'Yes! I finally have a pokémon!'  
Gary looked slyly at his grandfather. 'What is it with you and giving away weird starter pokémon?'

Oak smiled. 'Just a habit, I guess.' Then he dug in his pocket and handed something to me. 'Here you go, five new pokéballs to start your journey with.'

'Wow!' I accepted them gratefully. 'Thanks Professor!'

He turned to search in a nearby drawer and found a small red device. 'Here it is, one of my pokédexes. You can have this to help you identify other pokémon you come across. I gave one to Gary too, when he became a trainer, in case he discovered any new pokémon for me.' He handed me the pokémon encyclopaedia. 'It will also serve as your trainer ID, and you can set it to auto-teleport any pokémon you catch over 6, so you aren't breaking any rules.'

I felt privileged. 'Only a handful of trainers in the world get pokédexes!' I gasped.

'Well, when you get back home I suggest you change the settings so that your captured pokémon are transported to your Pokémon Representative, and not to me. Oh, and one more thing…' Professor Oak pointed the Pokédex sensor at Meowth and proceeded to scan. Then he typed on the keypad before handing it back to me. 'If you're going to travel without a Pokéball for your starter, it needs to be registered to you. Pokéball capture automatically registers your new pokémon, but this time it needs to be done manually.'

'Meowth. Currently registered to Holly Evergreen,' chimed the Pokédex.

That's when it really sunk in. This pokémon was registered to me, and only me. We would be partners. We would be great. We would be the best duo ever!

I held Meowth in my lap during the ride home on Fearow. Despite being an oddball, he was still a cute little furry thing at times. And the funny way he talked was starting to grow on me.

'Are you sure you really want to go on a journey with a weird pokémon like me? I can't guarantee that I'll be any good,' he said sadly.

'I think it's great!' I smiled, 'a human that speaks pokémon and a pokémon that speaks human! I couldn't have asked for a better partner!'


	5. On The Road

I don't own any copyrighted characters, ideas, plots or Pokémon used in this fanfiction.

**The Johto League**

**Chapter 5**

**On The Road**

**  
**  
The following morning, I woke up in my own bed for the very last time. I'd decided yesterday to wait until tomorrow to begin my journey, so I could get a good night's sleep, and now, tomorrow was finally here. I'd been so excited it was a wonder I'd got any sleep at all.

I turned and looked at my bedside clock… and realised I had planned to leave for good over an hour ago. I sat up sharply.

_Thump _

'Ow!'

I looked over the side of the bed.

'Sorry, Meowth. I forgot you were there…'

'You'd better not be doin' that every morning, or else I'm gettin' my own sleeping bag,' he said, picking himself up from where he had fallen off.

'Holly!' called my mother from downstairs, 'There's a visitor here to see you!'

'Can it wait?!' I yelled back, 'I only just got up!'

'He says it's urgent!'

Rolling my eyes, I ran downstairs to see what was so important, but stopped in my tracks when I discovered Gary in our living room.

He raised an eyebrow. 'You know, when you're on the road, you'll probably want to keep your clothes on when you sleep and only wear pyjamas at Pokémon Centres. Just a bit of advice for the newbie.' I looked down and accidentally blushed when I realised I hadn't even changed out of my Jigglypuff pyjamas.

'Excuse me, young man, but what is your name?' my mother inquired, having realised that Gary didn't pull his verbal punches.

'I'm Gary Oak, ma'am, grandson of the world famous Professor Oak.'

To my utter dismay she went starry eyed.

'Oh my gosh! Professor Oak's grandson… in our house!' she looked at me in that way that makes me dread whatever she's about to say. 'I'd be a lot more comfortable with you leaving home so soon if an accomplished trainer like Gary here went with you to make sure you're all right.'

Gary responded before I could protest. 'That'd be fine with me. I wouldn't mind having a protégé around for company. And you'll get a great head-start in your training – I bet there aren't any other newbies who get to be personally taught by trainers of my calibre.'  
His blatant arrogance left me lost for words.

'Why don't you head back to the Pokémon Centre, Gary, and I'll send Holly over as soon as she's ready,' Mum beamed, before heading back to the kitchen.

'Don't be too long,' Gary smirked at me as he passed by on his way to the door, 'Gary Oak doesn't like waiting around for Slowpokes.'

With that, the front door closed, and I was left standing alone in the room, having not said a single thing.

I got ready to go and checked the contents of my backpack again as quickly as possible and said goodbye to my mother, who made me promise not to leave town without Gary. I'd started thinking about doing exactly that. Then I had to head over to the laboratory to tell Professor Elm that I'd be leaving home early and I wouldn't need one of his starters. While I was there he changed the setting on my Pokédex so that it would automatically send my extra pokémon to his transporter. He wished Meowth and me luck and said he was looking forward to taking care of the pokémon I would send him.

Finally, I checked the Pokémon Centre. Sure enough, Gary was ready and waiting.

'You need to register yourself for the Johto League competition while you're here,' he reminded, 'I've already done it.' All I had to do was give Nurse Joy my Pokédex for identification, and a machine registered me so that I was guaranteed entry to the Johto League Competition in roughly a year's time, if I managed to earn at least eight badges. It seemed like eons away at this point, even if I _was_ able to win eight badges, but I still wouldn't wait to get started.

The three of us headed to New Bark Town's western exit, which opened onto a dirt pathway surrounded by pine forest. I turned back just before stepping onto the path and took a last look at my home, then hurried on to rejoin the others.

'Where are we heading, then?' Gary asked, getting out his map.

'Cherrygrove City isn't too far from here,' I interjected, 'and I'm sure we have to pass through it to get any of the other towns in Johto. It doesn't have a Gym, though.'

'Hmph… I guess getting my first badge will take longer than I thought…' Gary grumbled. We walked quietly for a while, during which time I squinted in-between the trees as we passed by to see if there were any wild pokémon around.

'All right, out with it, then,' I said, folding my arms, 'why did you offer to let me come with you and make it so I couldn't refuse?'

'…Would you believe, out of the goodness of my heart?'

I raised an eyebrow in a way that clearly said "yeah, right".

'Okay, fine, I promised Grandpa that I'd make the offer so I could keep an eye on that Meowth of yours,' Gary relented. 'He wants to make sure I can report anything weird that happens if it levels up. And I, for one, wouldn't mind keeping an eye on him because I still think anyone from Team Rocket has to be morally bankrupt.'

Meowth and Gary fiercely glared at each other.

'For your information, twoipo, we may have been bankrupt but we had our standards. We never _actually_ ever managed to steal anybody's pokémon anyway, so dere.'

'You two had better not be fighting the entire way around Johto,' I sighed.

'Well, for once in my life, I'd appreciate not being treated like a test subject,' Meowth remarked at Gary. '…Actually I'm kinda tired already. I used to travel long distances by hot air balloon, so a good walker I ain't.'

'That's okay, here, I'll give you a ride,' I smiled, picking Meowth up and placing him on my shoulder. He made himself comfortable by sitting on the end of my backpack.

'Hee, I could get used to dis!'

Then suddenly, I saw something dart through the bushes ahead of us. I jogged forward, leaving the others wondering what was going on, until I caught up with it. I couldn't have imagined it, so there must be a pokémon hiding under the foliage.

'Meowth, c'm'ere! I need you to flush out whatever's in this bush.'

Meowth ran over obediently, and slashed the leaves apart with his claws, revealing a small purple and white coloured pokémon with large front teeth. A Rattata.

'You can take this one, Meowth, use fury swipes!'

Meowth lashed out at the tiny rat with his paws, but the Rattata jumped out onto the pathway and evaded the swings. Then it turned and ran away from us.

'After that Rattata!' I yelled in dismay, and we all set off in hot pursuit. However, the Rattata had the advantage of being nimble and on four legs, so as we ran it got further and further away. Then all of a sudden the trees fell away from the path and we were standing in a small field. The Rattata dived into the long grass and, with a rustle, it was gone.

I groaned loudly. 'That one could have been my first capture!' Then I sighed and turned to Gary, 'I suppose it's usually difficult to get started, right?'

'Eh, no, I did it on my first try,' he replied brightly. With that we carried on, until in the middle of the field I spotted a group of four or five Hoppip floating on a breeze several metres in the air.

'Stand back and watch the pro,' Gary boasted, unclipping one of his pokéballs and hurling it into the air. It burst open to reveal someone I was already familiar with - his Fearow. Fearow flew up to the Hoppip and followed Gary's commands to use agility, so they wouldn't escape, fury attack to damage them all, and then peck on one of them to knock it down to earth. The little pink pokémon couldn't use its leaves for floatation any more and hit the ground with a bump, then didn't get up. Gary grabbed a spare pokéball, pressed the button to enlarge it and ready it for capture, and threw it. It hit the fallen Hoppip, transformed it into energy and sucked it inside, then barely wobbled at all as the pokémon resisted before falling still.

Gary paraded over and picked the ball up just as it was teleported away back to Oak's lab.  
'And _that's_ how it's done!' he gloated cockily.

I pouted and walked past him, pretending not to care. 'And do you actually _have_ any friends?' I asked rhetorically. That shut him up quite nicely.

He caught us back up once he'd recovered.

'That's not funny, you know. I'll have you know that when I travelled around Kanto last year, I had a _whole car_ full of fans following me around everywhere. They had routines set up to cheer me on with, and pom-poms and everything.'

'Fans doesn't necessarily mean friends,' I said in a tentative way, in case he hadn't yet realised it. 'What happened to them all, anyway?'

'Well, they got kind of annoying after a while… and they weren't very fun to talk to…'

Over to one side I saw a pokémon rise out of the grass. I recognised the cute, brown pokémon as a Sentret, standing on its tail.

'Hey! You there! Sentret!' I called as I ran over, 'I challenge you to a battle!'

The Sentret didn't seem to understand and cocked its head quizzically. When Meowth leapt over and struck it, it seemed to get the message. To my surprise, it tried to hit Meowth with a move right back instead of fleeing.

'Okay, let's do it right this time! Use fury swipes!'

Meowth scratched his opponent furiously, leaving marks, and the Sentret seemed dazed. It tried to retaliate half-heartedly, but was too slow, and when Meowth got in one more blow it toppled over.

Heart pounding, I realised this was the time to use a ball and fumbled around for one, then threw it, hoping that I could aim properly. Sentret was pulled inside the ball and it lay on the ground rocking back and forth as its captive attempted to escape. I kept my eyes glued to the ball, waiting for what seemed like hours. Finally the ball pinged and was still.

I walked over in disbelief and picked up my pokéball. Then it sank in and I felt joy welling up inside me.

'I did it! I did it! I captured my first pokémon ever!' I whooped and danced around the meadow.

'Sheesh, it's just a Sentret…' Gary rolled his eyes. 'Are you going to be doing this the whole way?'

'Yes I am, mister grumpy pants,' I said and went back to thanking Meowth and prancing about with glee.


	6. Oak Verses Acorn

I don't own any copyrighted characters, ideas, plots or Pokémon used in this fanfiction.

**The Johto League**

**Chapter 6**

**Oak Verses Acorn**

**  
**  
I let Sentret out of its pokéball immediately. It looked about quizzically and I knelt down to its level.

'Hiya, Sentret,' I beamed, 'my name's Holly and I'm your trainer now. I want to be the best pokémon trainer in the world, so I'll train you so you're really strong and experienced and maybe you'll evolve and I'll keep you fit and healthy and we can be a team together!'

Sentret looked blank and blinked at me.

'Err… never mind,' I realised that it was all going over the poor thing's head, so I just patted her affectionately. Sentret squealed delightedly and I figured that simplicity was probably the best policy with young pokémon.

'Are you going to insist on making friends with every pokémon along the way?' Gary interrupted us, sounding impatient.

'Of course! I want all my pokémon to be my trusted allies.'

Gary snorted. 'If I took the time to make nice with all the pokémon I caught, I'd probably still be back in Kanto!'

'…So… you don't get to know your pokémon at all?'

'I don't have a relationship with my pokémon. That's all, no big deal.'

I shot him a determined look. 'You may not have a relationship with your pokémon, but… I'm sure your pokémon have a relationship with you.'

For a couple of seconds, Gary didn't respond, then he just brushed the issue aside dismissively. 'Pah, you sound just like Ash! Now look, let me teach you something. Whenever you capture a new pokémon, analyse it with your pokédex. It'll give you a lot of essential information.'

I allowed him to change the subject and brought out the pokédex Professor Oak had given me.

'Sentret, the scout pokémon,' it droned, 'Sentret uses its strong tail to lift itself up and survey the surrounding area for danger. Level: 3, known techniques: scratch.'

'Hmm. A "scout" pokémon?' I mused, 'That sounds like it would make a good name. Shall I call you Scout?' Scout chirped gleefully. I couldn't see Gary but I knew he must have been rolling his eyes.

'Come on, we're never going to even reach Cherrygrove unless we get a move on!' Gary grumbled, stalking off on the path that went back into the forest. I recalled Sentret, and Meowth and I ran after him.

'Okay, okay, I'll try not to hold you up any more…' I said as we caught up. Gary didn't reply, so I tried to break the silence. 'Who's this Ash person you mentioned?'

'Hm? Ash, well… I guess you could say we were friends once. We both grew up in pallet Town and started our journeys on the same day – he's like, my rival. He's the most sentimental kid in the whole world – absolutely dotes on his pokémon.'

'I'll say,' Meowth chipped in, 'he made it hard enough trying to steal them from him.'

Gary scowled. 'What, you… you stole from him?'

'Not exactly. We tried. Our boss assigned us to steal his Pikachu on account of it being abnormally strong. We followed the twoip's team for over a year and never got a t'ing.'

'Abnormally strong, eh? I didn't have any problem defeating it,' Gary noted modestly.

Just then our walking was interrupted by a green, spider-like pokémon descending from the branches above into our path, hanging at face level by its silken thread.

'It's just a Spinarak. Let's leave it alone,' Gary said, preparing to walk past it.

'No, wait. I want to battle it.'

'You don't seriously want to add a Spinarak to your team?'

'No way. I just have someone who needs the battle experience,' I said, removing the pokéball containing my recent capture from my belt. 'Let's get them, Scout!'

Scout materialised and bounced onto the dirt path. I asked for a scratch attack, and she obeyed, clawing at the bug type pokémon fiercely. Spinarak tried to fight back by shooting silk thread from its mouth, but Scout hopped out of the way and continued to attack in-between bursts. Quite soon our insect opponent gave up and pulled itself by its string back into the canopy.

'Great going!' I cheered for my little fighter, 'let's look for some more!'

All the way along the path, Sentret and I tried to battle every pokémon that caught our notice. It was important for us to battle the small, weak, wild pokémon as neither of us had built up much experience. So the little Sentret did well, up against foes of her own level, with my commands to give her the edge.

After a few miles, at the point where I felt we must now be quite close to Cherrygrove, Scout was looking worse for wear. But she seemed all the tougher for it. Pitted against a Pidgey this time, she was starting to become too exhausted to successfully dodge. The Pidgey came flying forward in a tackle attack.

'Scout, try to move out of the way!'

But instead of moving, the Sentret curled up her body tightly into a ball. When the Pidgey's attack hit it didn't seem to have much effect, then Scout uncoiled, looking determined. She retaliated as the Pidgey was preoccupied with the failure of its own attack, batting the small bird deftly to the ground.

'Sentret-tret!' she chirped.

'Looks like your pokémon figured out how to use a new attack,' Gary explained. 'It defended itself using defense curl because it was too tired to make a jump for it. Pokémon will learn new moves every few levels, and it looks like yours has levelled quite a bit already.'

I petted Scout gently and praised her for the effort, then decided to carry her for a while. Luckily my two pokémon were light and it didn't cost much energy to support them both. Soon we passed by a small tree that seemed different from normal forest trees – it was the only one of its kind in the area and it grew round, blue berries.

Gary ran to it immediately. 'These berries are important. Berries like this have various healing properties, so it's a good idea to stock up when you come across them,' he picked a few choice berries from the tree and stored them in his bag, 'but only take the ripe ones that are perfectly round and are dark blue, because the unripe berries are always slightly harmful.'

I took his advice and picked off a handful of what looked like ripe berries, then picked out a pocket of my backpack to keep them in. Scout held out a paw and asked to try some, so I shared a few with her and Meowth. Meowth looked pleased for the food, but Scout looked positively invigorated by the treat and seemed more healthy. Then I tried one myself out of curiosity – it was incredibly tough to bite and was full of so many different flavours that I couldn't keep track of them all.

'Okay, let's carry on,' Gary continued, 'I should think we're nearly there by now.'

'Hang on,' I started, 'before we get there… I want to have a battle with you.'

Gary snorted humourlessly in confusion. 'You what? But you've been training for… a day!'

'Yeah, but I want to see how well I can do against another person. Scout's getting good and she's just been healed, so… please?'

Gary sighed, feeling that the best way to resolve this would be to give in. 'You don't know what you're getting yourself into…' Without having to think he pulled a pokéball from his belt and called out its occupant. The adorable, unmatchable Eevee jumped to the ground and sat looking completely innocent.

I frowned in thought. Eevee wouldn't be Gary's strongest pokémon, as it was unevolved, but as his starter it was the pokémon he was most in synch with. Shrugging it off, I decided to just give it my best shot.

'C'mon Scout, we can take them! Right?' Scout bounded forward, facing Eevee. She looked confident and good as new.

'Okay Eevee, let's start with quick attack.'

Eevee immediately disappeared from its current position, leaping around in an attempt to confuse its foe before unexpectedly attacking.

'You can't outrun it, so use defense curl!' I commanded. Scout curled up tightly, and straight away Eevee tackled into the brown ball like a shot. The ball bounced away from the forceful impact and hit a nearby tree, at which point Scout unfurled herself, looking a bit shaken and bruised. I called for her to use the standard scratch attack, and she obeyed as best she could, but Eevee twisted cleanly out of the way and bit back. His teeth snagged Scout's tail, and the sharp attack shocked her.

'Eevee, let's use take down.'

I tried to get Scout to use defense curl in preparation for such a damaging attack but she was still flinching, and Eevee streaked towards her and hit her in a full-body collision. Eevee wasn't at all phased, Scout collapsed, and I knew it was all over. I rushed towards her to pick her up, while Eevee was returned to his pokéball.

Looking at the unconscious, beaten pokémon I was holding, the strongest thing I felt was overpowering guilt. This was my fault. I don't know how well I had expected to do in that fight, but all at once I knew why it had been a bad idea. My pokémon had been badly injured, and it was my fault. I knew that I would never take battling so lightly in the future. Battling as a contest of skill was a sport, but running into a fight I fully expected to lose was just cruel.

'Scout… I'm sorry, I…'

Gary remained silent, almost as if he recognised this realisation. Eventually he said:

'Cherrygrove can't be far. Let's hurry to the Pokémon Centre.'

I looked back, nodded, and then we both walked quickly on. It was well into the evening now. Finally the trees thinned out and I saw the familiar signs of civilisation. It was a tiny, quaint little town, with warm, welcoming light at every window. After giving Nurse Joy the pokémon to look after and having our dinner, we headed for bed.


	7. Illusion Confusion

I don't own any copyrighted characters, ideas, plots or Pokémon used in this fanfiction.

**The Johto League**

**Chapter 7**

**Illusion Confusion**

**  
**  
Gary woke me up the next morning at some unearthly hour. There wasn't much light, but there was enough to see that Gary was already dressed and ready. I grumbled and tried to go back to sleep.

'It's so early… the sun's barely up…' I mumbled.

'That's the point. It's best to leave early so we can cover as much ground as possible during the daylight. Now come on, unless you want me to leave without you.' He finished pulling on his shoes and left.

A few minutes later I was dressed and made my way to the Pokémon Centre lobby, wondering whether Gary going on by himself would really be such a bad thing. Meowth was still fast asleep, and feeling sympathetic, I just carried him around. I joined Gary for breakfast and Scout joined in, looking chipper as usual. Finally we were ready to leave and followed the road north, out of the small Cherrygrove City and off into the wilderness.

It must have been a long time since I last saw the world just past daybreak, because although the scenery was much the same, a difference hung in the crisp, cool air. There were different kinds of pokémon around at this time of day, too, which as Gary pointed out, was one reason why keeping to his schedule was so useful. He didn't want to miss out on any different kinds.  
On the way we passed many trees that were blossoming with cute pink or white flowers, and the area was teeming with Caterpie and Rattata, so I brought Scout out to challenge the wild local pokémon for experience. After a while we passed a tree in bloom that had a red insect pokémon hovering around the buds. It caught my attention, so I opened my Pokédex.

'Ledyba, the five star pokémon. On its own it tends to be timid, but in a swarm they are more active.'

'It looks interesting, c'mon, Scout, you can take it!'

Scout came forward and leapt up, but her flying opponent was more agile. It swooped to the ground to avoid the assault. However, now that it was closer, Scout successfully executed a scratch attack. The Ledyba used tackle and then tried to escape, but Scout recovered and shot off the ground so fast, she left a streak of light behind her, and collided with the Ledyba in the air.

'That looked like a quick attack,' Gary informed me, but I was busy reaching for a pokéball. A few seconds later the Ledyba was caught inside the ball.

Gary came over to interrupt my quick capture celebration. 'It didn't put up much of a fight. Why'd you want it?'

I shrugged. 'I dunno, it's quite cute I guess.'

I deliberately tried to annoy him by being vague. It didn't matter to me why I wanted the pokémon, I just did. The pokédex told me that the new addition was male and at level 5. I decided to call him Vesper.

We continued walking for the entire day, stopping every so often for breaks and food. Gary did most of the talking, telling us about his adventures the previous year during the Kanto League. We came across several trainers who lived in Cherrygrove and who ventured out to look for pokémon. I fought many of them, starting with Vesper until he tired, then with Scout, who had an easier time because we'd had more practice. We won quite a few of the battles, save for a few against very a tough Weedle and Bellsprout.

Gary was adamant that we take the most direct route to the city with the nearest Gym, so when evening set in we were still miles away from any civilisation instead of stopping off at towns along the way. Or so we thought. At the entrance to a very dense forest area was a cabin with lit windows. We were just wondering why somebody would live all the way out here when somebody came out – an old woman.

'Hello, youngins! Thinking of passing through these here woods, are you?'

We exchanged glances, then nodded.

'Well, you won't get very far in the dark. Nasty spirits live in these woods and the only way you can make it through without them bewitching you is to rent a pokémon from me.'

'Malevolent spirits? Is it a pokémon? Maybe I could catch whatever it is,' Gary seemed eager. I was apprehensive, myself.

'You can try, dearie, you can try…' the woman went on, 'but you'll need one of my pokémon for that too. Come on inside…'

We followed her into the cabin and found a few quaint little rooms. Two pokémon appeared to be residents there – a pair of Hoothoot.

'Is that the pokémon we need? A Hoothoot?' I inquired.

'Yes indeed. Lucky for you I've still got a good one left. One of them isn't properly trained for this,' she motioned to one of the Hoothoot, who looked annoyed, 'but the other one'll see you through safely.'

We paid her a small fee for the rental pokémon and took the Hoothoot with us into the woods. It wasn't completely dark out, but under the thick trees the light was so obscured that it was hard to see where we were moving. We had been instructed to follow the Hoothoot's lead to get through the forest, give him to the old lady's twin sister on the other side, and use its foresight attack on anything suspicious. Nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary for a while, until…

'G-gary? Do you see that?' I tried to direct his attention to a menacing face shape up in the branches. Meowth started freaking out.

'What is it? Don't let it eat me!'

'You're letting your imagination get the better of you. It's just some twigs and stuff,' he said confidently, but as I watched the grinning face, it began to loom out of the darkness and come towards us. I tripped over in shock.

'Hoothoot! Get over here and use foresight!'

Hoothoot responded to me and shot blazing red beams from its eyes. The beams passed over the apparition, and as it happened, the threatening visage was wiped away and a confused looking Haunter hovered in its place.

'So it is a pokémon!' Gary said as the Haunter floated away.

But it turned out not to be just one pokémon. As we continued through the forest we were subjected to many apparitions, which Hoothoot successfully got rid of, caused by a vast population of ghost pokémon who lived here and enjoyed playing tricks on travellers. Some of the illusions were so intricate that I couldn't help admiring the ethereal powers of the mischievous pokémon who caused them. Gary cornered one of the Gengar after an ambush and caught it using his trusted Eevee. Not long after that, we heard voices.

'D'you think it's real, or is it just another trap?' I whispered as we made our way back to the path. The incomprehensible voices turned to screams and I shuddered. They were getting closer…

Gary looked around for the direction the disturbance was coming from and eventually pointed the right way, calling for Hoothoot to use its power. The red lights washed over the area and chased the mean-spirited pokémon away. Then I saw that three people had crossed paths with us, and it must've been them who were screaming. They all looked confused, even the Pikachu one of them was carrying.

'That was just an illusion. Get over yourselves, guys.'

I assumed from that that Gary knew these people. He thanked Hoothoot and explained that it was impossible to get through the forest without using one, which we now knew to be true.  
'If you've got a Hoothoot, how come you're still in here?' asked the girl of the group.

'I've been busy catching pokémon and we lost track of time, that's why. Well, good luck, you guys, you're gonna need it.' He walked off and dragged myself and Meowth with him. We continued the march through the darkness.

'Who're they, then?'

'Remember I mentioned Ash? He was the one with the Pikachu. The others are his friends.'

'I hope they don't recognise me,' Meowth chipped in, 'They'll probably attack me or something…'

'Aw, I won't let them,' I promised, 'if they're as nice and sweet as Gary moans about, then I bet they'll forgive you eventually.'

The darkness got even deeper to the point where we could hardly move without falling over something, even though was had torches. I'd entertained the idea of catching my own Gastly from this forest, after seeing how effective ghost pokémon could be, but now I just wanted to get out as soon as humanly possible. Eventually the trees did thin out and we found an open area at last, along with a cabin just like the one we'd been in at the start of the woods.  
We glanced at each other.

'Err… we didn't go in a giant circle, did we?'

For a moment we were scared that we had actually ended up right where we started when we found that the woman living in the shack looked exactly the same, then we remembered that it was her twin sister. We'd made it through okay. So, we returned the rented Hoothoot, and as it was well into the night now, we asked to stay in the cabin for the night. It was at least better than sleeping out in the open air, and she agreed, so we rolled out our sleeping bags, ate from our supplies, and rested.


	8. Fight or Flight

I don't own any copyrighted characters, ideas, plots or Pokémon used in this fanfiction.

**The Johto League**

**Chapter 8**

**Fight or Flight**

**  
**  
We reached our destination, Violet City, not long after setting off just after dawn. Gary must have been used to it, but I was relieved to see the signs of civilisation again, even if it had only been a day's journey through the wilderness. The first thing we did was to get our pokémon refreshed at the Centre, followed by a trip to the Pokémart to restock on supplies. Many towns in Johto had special buildings linked to the history and culture of the town, and this one was no different, because standing tall over the houses and shops was the Sprout Tower. I wanted to explore it and find out why the Tower was built, but Gary refused, saying that there was no time for idle sight-seeing. Instead, we made our way to the Violet City Gym.

It was a large structure, taller than most of the other buildings, and although it wasn't as high or as ornately decorated as the Sprout Tower, it had nevertheless been made to look impressive. Gyms were usually the most visited place in a town or city which hosted one, so people put a lot of work into designing their Gym to stand out from any other.

Gary strode to the Gym doors confidently and pulled them open while I followed. Inside there was nobody to greet us. The place seemed abandoned, with only the lines for a practice arena painted on the floor.

'Don't people usually meet you in order to challenge a Gym?' I asked, growing nervous since I'd never entered a Gym before with the intention of making a challenge.

'Yes, they do,' Gary replied bluntly. He looked around the room, puzzled, and then noticed the entrance to a lift on one wall. He pushed the button next to it and the doors opened with a ping. 'Might as well see if anybody's upstairs.

We stepped into the lift and found, above all the buttons for individual floors, one labelled 'challenge'. Gary shrugged and pushed it, and we found ourselves moving upwards so far that I was sure we must've been on the roof of the building.

When the doors opened again, I saw that this was true. On the top of the building, open to the sky overhead and overlooking the rest of the town, we found many people and pokémon talking and training happily. It was a relief to see what was expected of a Gym environment, finally.

A few of the Gym trainers looked up and spotted us.

'Hey look, challengers!'

'Challengers have arrived?'

'Somebody find Falkner.'

Quickly, a few people dashed off and searched until the word of challengers reached the Gym Leader, who was easily recognisable when he came to meet us from the way the other trainers regarded him. The Leader was younger than I had expected – only 2 or 3 years older than ourselves. The young boy looked very confident and brushed a hand through the dark, unkempt hair that fell partly over his face.

'Welcome to my Gym, challengers! I'm Falkner, the lover of flight and bird pokémon.' I understood then why the lower floors of the Gym were empty. 'Do both of you intend to challenge me?' We nodded. 'Then who first?'

'I'll go first,' Gary replied promptly, 'I'm Gary Oak from Pallet Town.'

'Very well, then it'll be a straightforward two-on-two match for each of you. I prefer using three, but since I'll have to face you both, I don't want to end up battled into a corner…'

Falkner walked off and we followed him out to the middle of the roof. The trainer underlings parted in front of him and vacated the area, assembling on the sidelines and leaving the lines of the arena visible on the floor. Falkner and Gary took their places at either ends of the field, a trainer stepped up to act as referee, and the battle began.

'I choose Farfetch'd!' Falkner threw the ball containing his first pokémon, as the general rule was for Gym Leaders to select first, and a stubby brown bird flapped onto the field, carrying a stick in its mouth.

Gary pulled out his own pokéball in response. 'Let's go, Magnemite!'

The small, floating, silver pokémon appeared, and made the first move with a swift attack. Farfetch'd hopped out of the way as a barrage of yellow stars assaulted it, but got hit by a few. It used a fury attack in retaliation and Magnemite was pummelled, although the damage appeared to be minimal.

'Thunder wave, Magnemite!'

Electricity crackled around Magnemite and shot at the opponent, but this time Farfetch'd used agility to avoid it.

'Use peck!'

'Thunder wave again!'

Farfetch'd launched forward to peck Magnemite, but the electricity crackled again and before Farfetch'd could make a hit, it was paralysed by the electric shock.

'Now's your chance, Magnemite, thundershock!'

A powerful electricity surge hit Farfetch'd, and the bird collapsed.

'Very impressive!' Falkner called as he returned his fallen fighter, 'you may be experienced, but this'll really give you a run for your money!'

The pokémon he released was a much bigger bird, lacking actual wings. Instead, it had three heads.

Gary eyed the Dodrio for a second to plan his strategy.

'Thundershock, Magnemite!'

His pokémon attempted to repeat the shock attack, but Falkner made no command and his Dodrio immediately launched itself high into the air. While unable to fly, its strong legs carried across the entire arena with ease and Magnemite's attack missed.

Gary attempted a few more attacks, but Dodrio was able to avoid them all. In-between, the Dodrio's heads each launched part of a triangular beam, a tri-attack, at Magnemite, weakening it considerably.

'Now, Magnemite – lock on,' Gary commanded. His pokémon only beeped in response. Then Gary ordered a thundershock, at which the Dodrio again jumped high out of the way, but when Magnemite's attack was released it shot towards Dodrio and hit the bird dead-on. The surprise hit made Dodrio crash awkwardly to the ground. Gary smirked at this, but a sudden drill peck from the three bird-heads put his Magnemite out of the match.

Gary returned it and picked his final battler with no hesitation. It was a Graveler.

The large-boulder like pokémon took on Dodrio with ease, ignoring all attacks on its hard exterior and striking the bird with its body in tackle and rollout attacks. Quite quickly, Dodrio was beaten.

The Gym trainers applauded and cheered the clear victory as Gary was awarded his new badge. Falkner also commended his strategic ability. I was suddenly far more nervous than I had been just thinking about the battle – now, everybody would be comparing my beginning skills to Gary's more advanced level of expertise. But there was nothing for it.

Meowth gave me a questioning poke from his usual place on my shoulder.

'Don't worry, you can sit this one out,' I told him before walking forward to the challenger's box, looking a lot more confident than I actually felt. Gary passed me on his way back and raised his eyebrows. His expression seemed to say 'You're nowhere near as good as me, but good luck anyway'.

'Okay, second challenger ready?' Falkner resumed his position on the field.

I nodded. 'I'm Holly Evergreen from New Bark Town.' It was a tradition to introduce yourself by full name and hometown in a Gym, as Gary had done earlier.

'Oh, a new trainer, eh?'

'Yes sir,' I gulped. Falkner chuckled back.

'Don't be nervous about it, just keep a clear head and do your best!' he finished by throwing his first pokéball into the ring. I felt a bit relieved that I recognised the pokémon that materialised – it was a Hoothoot. I also realised then that since Gary had gone first, Falkner must have had to use up his strongest pokémon already.

'Okay… let's give this our best shot!' I tried to encourage myself as I threw out Vesper's pokéball. My Ledyba looked around and guessed the match's importance from the amount of spectators, and started getting agitated.

'Calm down, Vesper! It'll be all right, I just want you to fight your hardest!' Somehow, having to support my own pokémon made me more secure as well.

'Begin the match!'

'Use peck, Hoothoot!'

I fought off the urge to pani c. The Ledyba was at a disadvantage so I needed to focus on evading more than attacking.

'Dodge it!'

Hoothoot flew forward, gaining speed and heading right for its target, but Vesper was quicker and looped out of the way through the air. Hoothoot chased after, leading to an aerial escape attempt. I couldn't let this go on, or Vesper would tire and be helpless.

'Vesper, use supersonic!'

He dodged behind Hoothoot and let loose waves of sound that were impossible for us to hear. Hoothoot became disorientated and flew around in circles before flying in the wrong direction and hitting itself on the floor hard enough to cause damage. Then Vesper fluttered his wings as hard as possible to gain speed and tackled Hoothoot with as much force as he could muster. The brown bird hooted and flopped to the floor. I grinned widely as Falkner returned his first pokémon.

'Not bad; you show some skill…' Falkner flicked the hair out of his eyes, 'but you're luck's run out now!'

Then he revealed his final pokémon – a fine Pidgeotto swooped into the air as it was released from its ball. I eyed the new opponent anxiously. A Pidgeotto was a far more advanced opponent than the basic Pidgey I'd had experience with on the road here.

'Vesper, catch it quickly with supersonic!'

The Ledyba tried his best, but the large bird pokémon he was facing flapped his strong wings and blew up a whirlwind that scattered the sound wave attack.

'Quick attack, Pidgeotto!'

In a flash the flying foe was streaking towards Vesper, and there was no time to retaliate, they collided… and Vesper was clearly at too much of a disadvantage in type and level to continue. I called him back into his ball. Making a mental note to tell him later how proud I was, I reattached his ball to my belt and took off the only available replacement.

'Scout, let's go!'

My Sentret appeared eagerly from the ball, hopping onto the field with somewhat innocent enthusiasm.

'Pidgeotto, quick attack!'

Just as before, the bird burst forward with gathering speed, ready to attack.

'Scout, use quick attack back!'

Scout charged out of the way at the last second, light streaming behind her, then used the energy while turning to fling herself off the ground into her opponent. The Pidgeotto was thrown off balance. A whirlwind attack blew Scout over, but she got up and narrowly dodged a swooping tackle. Then she tackled it back, leaping off the ground to do so. However, Pidgeotto managed to seize the advantage by batting Scout away, and she fell back and bounced onto the floor. Pidgeotto launched itself forward for a final tackle while Scout was down.

'Quickly, Scout, use defence curl!'

Scout held on and pulled her body into a protective position. Pidgeotto's tackle grazed her, but then she immediately unfurled and sprang up, using a quick attack to dive at Pidgeotto. The winged pokémon was driven to the ground where it crash-landed.

'I can't believe it…' I said as Falkner recalled his last pokémon. 'Scout, we did it!'

Scout chirped happily, although she was certainly exhausted.

I saw Gary give me a small thumbs-up as I approached Falkner to accept the badge.

'Congratulations! An impressive win for a beginning trainer,' he smiled, handing me the Zephyr Badge.

I thanked him profusely before virtually skipping back to Gary, not fighting the urge to celebrate.

'Victory feast at the pokémon centre!'


	9. Once a Rocket, Always a Rocket

I don't own any copyrighted characters, ideas, plots or Pokémon used in this fanfiction.

**The Johto League**

**Chapter 9**

**Once a Rocket, Always a Rocket**

**  
**  
The route to the south of Violet City gave us a slight change in environment. Along with the grass fields and forests there were now wooden docks across a bay connected to the sea, and the land was becoming more mountainous. We covered the ground as fast as possible, since Gary was one for ruthless efficiency. I was instructed to battle every trainer we came across in order to practice. Gary claimed that these trainers were still too weak for there to be a point in fighting them himself, but I only won about half the battles I fought, which left room for improvement.  
'Brilliantly done, Vesper!' I congratulated, recalling my Ledyba to his ball. He'd just pulled off a win against a young boy trainer who had a Zubat.

'Hey Meowth?' I spoke to the cat pokémon on my shoulder as I went to shake hands with the disappointed boy, 'you don't feel like you're missing out, do you?'

'No way. I'm happy just takin' it easy.'

The boy suddenly looked at me quizzically.

'…Did that Meowth just talk?'

I mentally scolded myself – I'd forgotten that Meowth had been discouraged from talking when other people were around, to avoid the long explanations.

'Oh, yeah, he talks. He's… special,' I explained, hoping that the kid wouldn't ask further questions.

'It's just that there were a few people back down this path who were asking if anybody had seen a talking Meowth,' he casually shrugged, then waved and went on his way.

Once he'd left we all exchanged dubious glances.

'…How many other talking Meowth do you think people know of…?'

Curiously, we continued on the same path. I was still a little worried, but then Gary suggested something to take our minds off the puzzling information we'd heard from the boy earlier.  
'It feels like too long since I've caught anything…' he groaned, 'why don't we have a little competition? Let's split up for a while, each catch a pokémon, and whoever gets back here first wins.'

I nodded, grinning. 'You're on! Meowth, go stay by… that tree over there, and be the judge. Whoever makes it back first.'

We separated. Gary went in the direction of the sea, while I started searching off towards a mountainous area. For a little while, I didn't see anything at all. There weren't many pokémon sticking around out here. I panicked a little, thinking I would lose if I didn't so much as see something soon.

Then I took a deep breath to calm down. If I couldn't find a pokémon, I'd let the pokémon come to me. Finding a small area just outside the forest nearer the mountain base, I sat down, and waited.

A minute passed, and then a Rattata ran by. I thought of catching it, but a Rattata wasn't much of an accomplishment… and by then it had already scampered away. I could see a few openings into caves that might hold Zubat… but then a cute yellow pokémon came, blinking, into the open.

'Hey, it's a Sandshrew! Those are adorable…' I picked out a pokéball and sent Scout after the prospective capture. The sandy-coloured mouse-like pokémon looked at us, blinking curiously. 'Hm, okay Scout, hit it with a quick attack!'

A miniature chase sequence unfolded as the two pokémon traded blows, the Sentret rushing in and out with quick attacks, the Sandshrew attempting to dodge and land its scratches. Suddenly Sandshrew revealed that it had another trick – it could shoot poison stings. Sharp needles hit Scout and she was thrown down.

'Scout! Are you okay?!' I fumbled for a spare pokéball and threw it at the now-weakened Sandshrew, and ran over to inspect the damage. Scout wasn't badly physically hurt, but she'd been poisoned…

I turned back and picked up the ball that had captured the Sandshrew behind me. I pocketed it, then picked up Scout, told her she'd be okay, and returned her to her ball to rest. Having finished, I rushed back to the starting point as fast as I could.

When I reached it I was dismayed to see Gary already standing there.

'You finally caught something, huh?' he smirked as I approached. I held up the newly occupied ball.

'Got a Sandshrew. How'd you do?'

Grinning broadly, Gary held out his hand to reveal 3 miniaturised pokéballs.

'Wooper, Mareep, and Natu. Not bad, eh?'

'Okay, okay, no need to gloat… I'm just worried about Scout, she got poisoned back there.'

'Oh, okay… let's keep going, there should be a Pokémon Centre not far from here.'

'Sure… hey wait, Gary… where's Meowth? Wasn't he supposed to be waiting here?'

Gary took a brief look around. 'Oh yeah… he wasn't here when I got back.'

'He wasn't?!' I started checking the area frantically for signs of him, but there were none. Until…

'Prepare for trouble!'

'Make it double!'

Nothing could have prepared us for seeing a hot air balloon shaped like a Meowth appear right over our heads.

'To protect the world from devastation!'

'To unite all peoples all peoples in every nation.'

'To denounce the evils of truth and love!'

'To extend our reach to the stars above!'

'Jessie!'

'James!'

Team Rocket blast off at the speed of light!'

'Surrender now or prepare to fight!'

These lines were spoken alternately by two people in the balloon's basket – one a redheaded woman whose hairstyle defied gravity, the other a man with long, lavender hair. Both were smiling in triumph.

I stared upwards in shock. 'Who are you people?!'

'Why, weren't you listening to the motto?' answered the man, 'I'm afraid you'll have to pay extra for a repeat performance.'

'Oh, be quiet, James,' his companion quietened him before turning back to myself and Gary on the ground. 'We understand that you've been keeping our team-mate away from us… well, now we've got him back. So all that's left is to say goodbye…'

With that she held up Meowth, who was struggling in her grasp.

'Get-offa-me-Jessie-lemme-go…'

'Meowth!' I yelled, 'Team Rocket? Why're you stealing my pokémon?!'

'This isn't your pokémon!' Jessie crowed, 'He's part of our team and it's going to stay that way!'

I looked back at Gary for help, hoping that he had something that could stop the balloon before it got too far away. He was about to react, but suddenly something distracted him. I looked up, and Meowth had stopped struggling in the basket – instead he looked like he was shaking with rage. His eyes turned completely white, so the pupils could no longer be seen. Jessie and James freaked out and backed away, and Meowth stood on the rim of the basket, held the palms of his paws out in front of him, and fired an intense blast of white energy upward into the balloon.

The explosion from the balloon blasted it off-course, and it flew out of control to land somewhere far away. Meowth had been knocked off from the force, and now lay still on the ground. I ran over to him, not knowing what had just happened, but he had fallen a long way…  
Meowth seemed injured, a little grazed, but just unconscious. He also looked exhausted. I picked him up and carried him carefully back to Gary, who was reading from his Pokédex.

'Hidden Power,' it said in its toneless, computer voice. 'This attack's strength and type depend entirely on the pokémon using it.'

'That's… that's what that attack was…?' I muttered in amazement. Gary nodded, speechless.

With two pokémon now who were in need of medical attention, we hastened on. Eventually its signature red roof came into view between the trees, and we all ran in, relieved that finally we could rest.


	10. Rock Slip 'n' Slide

I don't own any copyrighted characters, ideas, plots or Pokémon used in this fanfiction.

**The Johto League**

**Chapter 10**

**Rock Slip 'n' Slide**

**  
**  
While having breakfast in the Pokémon Centre I took the opportunity to ask Meowth about the people who had tried to kidnap him the day before. He'd been too exhausted after his spectacular attack to chat until he'd had a good night's sleep.

'Jessie and James are my old partners in crime,' he explained while we ate. 'We were buddies! We were a good team… well, not a good team, we never really accomplished much, but… we were a good team…'

I petted him fondly, scratching him behind the ears. 'Meowth do you ever… want to go back to your team…?'

'Having no money for food? Being total failures? Getting blasted off every day…?' Meowth looked at his food indignantly. 'It's not a good life. I kinda miss 'em, though…'

Feeling bad for him, but not being able to think of anything comforting to say, I looked down at the floor where my three pokémon were happily eating their food. The newcomer, my Sandshrew, now nicknamed Needles, seemed to be apologising to Scout the Sentret for poisoning her during the battle where he was captured. I couldn't help smiling at them. Pokémon always seem to be good-hearted in a way that can cheer you up, the way they can be at each other's throats one minute and apologising the next.

Not long after that we were ready to get back on the road again. Back in our usual formation with Meowth riding on my shoulder, the three of us wandered along the dirt track until Gary noticed something.

'Check this out!' he ran a little way off to some rock formations much like the ones I'd found yesterday. 'I think… yeah, there's a cave down here!'

'…So?' I followed him over. 'Why would we want to go in there? We're supposed to be getting to Azalea Town, not getting stuck in caves.'

'No, no…' Gary quickly reached for his map and studied it. 'I think… yes…! This might actually be a tunnel! It's marked on the map as a shortcut from here to Azalea Town…'

'You really want to risk getting lost down there instead of just taking the easy way?' I tried to somehow talk him out of it without letting him know I was pretty scared of going in there.

'Oh, come on! What's an adventure without some exploration! You've gotta take risks once in a while, otherwise you'll never have any fun!' And then he headed right on into the cave, and I lost sight of him.

'Gary?!' I tried to yell after him, but there was no response. I glanced over at Meowth, then carefully went in after him.

It was completely dark in there. The light from the entrance didn't go far so I couldn't see a thing.

'…Gary?'

Suddenly a light flicked on in the darkness. It was Gary's torch, and now I could see him smirking.

'Don't get scared that easily!'

'Well, don't go off without me in here…' I scowled and went to his side so we could continue.

Heading on into the darkness was unnerving. I got out my torch too and we attempted to light the way, while Meowth went on a little ahead, since he was able to see well even without illumination. The cave started to widen out and we realised that the rocky tunnel was quite large, and from the eerie dripping noises I guessed that there was water down here, too.  
It didn't seem to be going too badly until an unexpected sound echoed through the cave, something like a slow, bellowing roar. We all stopped in our tracks until it faded away.

'…Gary?' I murmured, not daring to speak any louder, 'What was that…?'

'…I don't know…' was the helpful answer.

'I bet there's a big pokémon down here somewhere…' I started to panic, 'something huge and menacing and it's going to attack us…!' I took a few hesitant steps backwards, and stumbled, having tripped over a rock.

Then the rock moved and I realised it wasn't actually a rock. It was a fairly irate Geodude.

I backed away from it nervously, but it had already decided that we needed to be punished, and picked up some hefty stones to throw at us. Immediately we all ran further down into the cave, trying to escape.

'Way to look where you're going!' Gary voiced his annoyance as we fled.

'Yeah, well, coming down here was still your idea…'

We all slowed down a little bit, having left the Geodude behind.

'Let's… let's not do that again…' Meowth groaned.

'Well, where are we now?' I said, looking about. The cave seemed the same as ever. 'Lost?'

'Nah, we're not lost,' Gary replied firmly. 'We're just somewhere where we don't know where we are…'

I spun the torch about, finding that there was solid rock everywhere but the way we came. '…Is this a dead end?'

Meowth got scared all of a sudden, shaking and pointing at one side of the craggy wall. 'Nope, it's not a dead end!'

I finally saw what he was pointing at – there was an eye embedded in the rock. It blinked. It had already seen us. The entire cave seemed to shift as the monster moved itself, and we realised that most of this section of the tunnel was actually the body of a gigantic Onix.

The ground shook and trembled and we tried to get away, but the Onix's movement had already sent this section of the cave crashing down. Rocks fell from the walls and ceiling and there was no visible way out, until Gary quickly spotted the small opening left where the Onix had been sleeping.

While the huge rock snake roared and wildly attacked, the three of us attempted to run past it and get through to the safe part of the cave… we all got through, thinking we had managed it, when more boulders fell from nowhere across the path, forcing us to jump out of the way. I focused only on avoiding the rubble, and ran on, gradually making it away from the dangerous area. But then when I looked around, catching my breath, I realised that the others were no longer with me, and I was completely alone.

Well, nothing else to do not but press on. At least I still had the rest of my team in their pokéballs, I rationalised. Surely I'd find my way back to Gary and Meowth at some point… as long as they were okay. For now, I didn't stop to consider what might happen if they weren't.  
Then I heard it again, the echoing roar that had scared me earlier. I had assumed that it must've been the Onix… but now I could tell that it obviously wasn't. Something else was making that sound… there it was again… and something about it didn't seem that threatening now. In fact, now that I could listen carefully… it wasn't a battle cry. Why didn't I hear it sooner! I scolded myself for missing the real interpretation. It clearly sounded like a monstrous cry for help.  
I continued my way into the cave, spurred on by determination to discover what was making these sounds. I found that the tunnel was becoming wider, opening out into a massive open cave…

Then I heard a splash, and found that I'd walked right into some water. Not just a puddle that I'd walked into, as I discovered by following the water with the torchlight – it was an entire lake that filled this cavern. It seemed like exactly the sort of place where a powerful monster pokémon might hide away, just keeping to itself, prepared to attack anybody who dared to intrude…

Something splashed in the water even though I was staying completely still. I didn't know what to do – stay frozen? Run and hide? Maybe my understanding of the strange sounds was wrong…

Finally I managed to swing the torch to bring to light what was making the noise. …A pokémon, out in the water. It was smaller than what my imagination had expected… it seemed to be about the same height as me. Slowly, it swam closer to me.

Now that I could see it better, the pokémon appeared to be graceful. It was mostly blue, with a long neck and purple shell. Although relatively large, the pokémon seemed to have a calming aura, reassuring and non-threatening.

Speechlessly, I reached for my pokédex and opened it, hoping that it wouldn't be startled…  
'Lapras, the transport pokémon,' I was informed. 'People have driven Lapras almost to the point of extinction. They will wander the sea, singing plaintively, as they search for others of their kind.'

'That's so sad…' I whispered. I looked up gently at the Lapras. 'That was you making those noises?'

Lapras nodded. I was slightly surprised. It was clearly intelligent. Then it whined again, in a forlorn, musical tone.

'You're… you're really lonely, aren't you…?'

I slowly reached up and stroked Lapras's forehead. Her skin was cool and wet, and she seemed eager and nuzzled my hand.

'I don't want to just leave you here, so… you're welcome to come along with me if you like. I'm in a group that travels with a lot of pokémon, so you won't be lonely any more,' I smiled, and she smiled back, nodding again and making joyful sounds. Excitedly, I got out a pokéball. 'You'll have to get in here, and I'll take you out of the cave. Okay?'

Again she nodded, and craned her head down to the ball in my hand, nudging it. It opened, transforming her into red energy, and she was sucked into the ball. It snapped shut instantly.

Grinning widely, I left the cavern and went about looking for the exit at last. It took over an hour of stumbling around in the dark tunnels, then finally, it began to get lighter. Following the source was easy enough and eventually I ran out into the sunlight, slightly blinded by it after being adjusted to the dimness of the cave.

Even better, I saw Gary and Meowth nearby, waiting for me.


	11. Rivalry and Teamwork

I don't own any copyrighted characters, ideas, plots or Pokémon used in this fanfiction.

**The Johto League**

**Chapter 11**

**Rivalry and Teamwork**

**  
**  
Walking out in the sunshine now seemed like a blessing after the horribly dark, dangerous cave.

'Gary… remind me not to let you pick shortcuts from now on.'

'Why not? It worked, didn't it. We must be nearly at Azalea Town by now.'

'It would've worked a lot better if we didn't get nearly killed doing it.'

'You're overreacting! My pokémon are strong enough to protect us, I had everything under control…'

We ended up bickering for a little while until I remembered that I would have another gym battle coming up again soon. Then we started discussing strategies.

'D'you know what kind of Pokémon Gym they have in Azalea, Gary?'

'Yeah, I think I remember… it oughta be real easy, if it really is a bug-type Gym.'

'Bugs? …Well, at least we've had a lot of practice…'

'I think I already know what I'm gonna get Gramps to send me for this Gym…'

As I wondered which Pokémon I would use, we were distracted by something squeaking. We all looked around, seeing nothing, until we looked up and spotted a Pokémon standing on a rocky ledge. It was a Cyndaquil, I recognised instantly.

Gary stepped forward, determined. 'Gimme a sec, I'll catch this, no problem…'

'Hold on. I might want to catch it too.'

'But it's a Cyndaquil! Why would you want it?'

'I know why you'd think that, but… it'd be a lot easier to take on the next Gym with a fire-type.'

'Hey, that's-…'

We looked up and the Cyndaquil had scampered away. Then we glanced at each other, knowing that this… meant competition.

We both separated and took our own ways up the jagged terrain.

'Hey, er… what's going on?' asked Meowth from my shoulder.

'Isn't it obvious? We're both gonna try and catch that Cyndaquil first… which way do you think it went?'

I took a look around and there was no indication of which way the pokémon might have gone. Meowth and I explored the area, searching in random places, but we found nothing, until…

'…Use water gun!'

'Aw no!' I cried out; that was Gary's voice. He must've found it already…

I snatched Meowth up and ran in the direction I heard Gary's voice. Crashing through a few bushes, I found him standing over the weakened Cyndaquil, ball ready to throw.

'Oh, there you are,' he sneered, not even trying to hide the triumph in his voice or expression. 'Come to witness my victory? I'm not surprised – after all, I am brilliant…'

While Gary went on about how great he was, the Cyndaquil spotted me, whimpered something, and limped forward. I just stared as the hurt pokémon took refuge behind me, clinging to my leg.

'…and that's why you'll never be… hey…' Gary finally noticed. '…Where'd it—hey, that's not fair!'

I shrugged. 'I didn't do anything.'

The Cyndaquil looked up at me, and I kneeled down and petted him. He chirped cutely.  
Gary shrank his pokéball away with reluctance.

'Eh, who needs it, it's probably weak anyway.'

'Don't be like that, Gary. It's not my fault he likes me…' I stood up, plucking Cyndaquil off the ground and holding him up to my face. My voice changed and I couldn't help baby-talking at the little pokémon. 'He likes me because I'M A GIRL AND HE'S SO CUTE! YES HE IS!'

Gary just scoffed and made his own way back to the path.

The rest of the walk to Azalea was rather quiet. At least, on Gary's part. I got to introduce Cyndaquil to Meowth and carried my new charge proudly, while Meowth batted a paw, cat-like, at the little guy. I decided to name him Spike.

At long last the tops of some buildings came into view, and we reached Azalea Town. Small, quaint, and surrounded by forests, there wasn't much remarkable about it except for the fact that there were Slowpokes. Everywhere. Dozing around on ever street, these pink, virtually unmoving pokémon dominated the town.

'…I guess it's their mascot or something?' Gary remarked as we entered the pokémon centre. After handing over our pokémon as usual to be healed, we discussed what to do next.

'I think I'll go take on the Gym first,' Gary checked over his mental strategy and remained aloof, 'You might as well check out the town or something until I'm done. I guess there isn't enough time for us both to challenge, you can go tomorrow.'

'…Okay.' I'd barely agreed before he had grabbed back his pokéballs and strutted out.

'Wow. He's a bit testy,' Meowth said, as I welcomed him back to the usual spot on my shoulder.

'All the more fun without him,' I shrugged, and my pokémon and I headed off to look around.

We dodged a few Slowpoke, located the Gym, but nothing very exciting until we found a little house with a sign that read, "Kurt's House – Maker of Apricorn Pokéballs".

'Apricorn…?' I echoed.

'Yes, apricorn,' I heard a small voice say. Looking down, I saw a small girl.

'Hello!' she smiled, 'I'm Kurt's granddaughter! He makes pokéballs for trainers out of apricorn.'

'Oh… what IS apricorn?'

'You don't know? I'll show you!'

The chirpy girl took my hand and dragged me away from the town to a forest near Kurt's house. There, she showed me a few specific trees. Only a few grew these apricorns, which turned out to be types of fruit. Apricorn come in seven different colours, and each one when hollowed out can make a different kind of ball.

After saying thank you to the girl, I opened up a few pokéballs. After all, this would be more fun to do as a group! Scout, Vesper, Needles and Spike joined Meowth and I to go picking these fruits.

Vesper's job was to fly up and look around, finding the fruit-bearing trees for us. I could already see one with large pink coloured fruit, but Kurt's granddaughter warned me not to take too many, so we left those. After that we discovered a tree with yellow fruit, and we all approached to pick some, but when we got there the tree's braches were full of Pineco. We all just backed away slowly.

Vesper tried again and led us successfully to a tree with nice blue-coloured fruit. Not knowing how many to take from there, I picked out what seemed to be an appealing one and it snapped easily from the tree when I took it. Stashing it in my backpack, our group moved on. We were lucky with the next tree, white apricorn all ready for picking, and I took one of those, too. However on the next tree, with red apricorn, the fruits were all too small and hadn't ripened enough to be picked.

I figured that having two apricorn was probably good, but as I was going to leave Vesper called out, having seen another tree not far away. We all followed his direction and came to a tree that looked like the other apricorn trees… but it didn't seem to have any fruit. I was confused until I head Vesper call out again.

'Lediiee! Ledeediee!' he buzzed around something at the top of the tree – a single apricorn! It was green, so I almost didn't see it. The only fruit of the tree, but this one looked ripe enough… but the problem was how to get it? All the other apricorn had come easily from reaching up to the bottom branches.

Vesper tried to cling to the fruit and pull it off, but it was as big as he was, and much heavier, and it didn't budge. I could have tried climbing the tree… I'd had a lot of practice at that in the woods around New Bark, but these apricorn trees had no boughs low enough to hold on to.  
I felt like giving up, until Scout tugged on the bottom of my jeans. She kept jumping up, and then managed to scurry up my body. And she sat on my head, reaching up toward the fruit.  
At first it seemed insane, but with Needles, Meowth, Spike and Scout all standing on top of each other on my shoulders, Scout at the top was able to reach the lone apricorn and pick it off. …Then we all tumbled over onto the ground. But the apricorn was safe, and I put that in my pack as well. Pleased with our teamwork, we al headed back to town.

Kurt answered his door when I knocked. He was quite an old man, white-haired, but with the honed practice of expertise etched into him.

'Hello, little lady. You'll be wanting me to take your apricorns?'

'Yes, sir,' I nodded, and my pokémon team-mates sounded their agreement from the floor. Then I held out my blue, white and green apricorn for him.

He took them and briefly examined them. 'Very well. Come back tomorrow and I'll give you my specially made artisan pokéballs! Oh, as long as you're okay to stay until tomorrow.'

'Yeah, I definitely am,' I nodded and grinned. 'I still have a Gym battle to win.'


	12. Bug Battle

I don't own any copyrighted characters, ideas, plots or Pokémon used in this fanfiction.

**The Johto League**

**Chapter 12**

**Bug Battle **

**  
**  
The next morning dawned bright and sunny, and I awoke to prepare for my gym match. I prepped my pokémon with a little pep-talk and hoped that is we tried hard today, I could walk away with a new shiny token of victory.

We reached the gym, a large, round, domed building, and went inside. Then we stopped and checked to make sure that we actually had gone inside. The building was filled with a forest and grass, a sort of inside garden. I would've thought the Gym specialised in grass types if I hadn't already been tipped off about the bugs… and sure enough, when I looked closer, the branches of the trees were filled with Caterpie, Spinarak and Metapod.

Having beaten this Gym the day before, Gary knew the way around, and led me through the indoor forest to somewhere near the building's centre, where we met a purple-haired boy.

'Hi, I'm Bugsy,' he said with a friendly smile.

'Hello. You seem pretty young for a Gym Leader!' I replied. Bugsy smirked.

'I guess I am a little younger than most, but I've loved bug-type pokémon since I was little. I've been training for years so you'd better watch out!'

Somewhat less nervous after this chat and finding that the Leader wasn't so friendly, I took the challenger's place on the battle field, and Bugsy took his. Our referee laid down the rules as a three-on-three match. Meowth and Gary sat at the side of the arena, and it began.

Bugsy threw out his pokémon first. I was surprised to see he chose a Kakuna. It was just a small, yellow cocoon pokémon, and I'd won easy battles against them. Didn't seem like a good pick for a Gym Leader's arsenal, but maybe he was just saving the best for last.

'I pick Marina! Come on out!' The ball opened and my Lapras, far larger than her opponent, appeared. 'Okay… let's start with your ice shard attack!'

With a beautiful sweep of her neck, Marina blew a blast of ice from her mouth, with ragged chunks of solid ice that hurtled towards Kakuna.

'Harden, Kakuna! Then counterattack!'

Kakuna didn't move, but its body darkened and became shiny, as if it were metal. When the ice shards hit they simply bounced off Kakuna's shell, inflicting hardly any damage. Immediately after, Kakuna moved, using its lower end to fire stingers at Marina. She couldn't dodge and was hurt.

'Woah!' I gasped, 'I had no idea Kakuna could do that!'

'Gym pokémon are tougher than any normal pokémon!' Bugsy smirked.

I tried to have Marina launch another ice shard, but the same thing happened and Kakuna simply hardened its defence. It just allowed Kakuna to retaliate with its stinger. But Marina did have one other attack to try.

'Let's try your water pulse attack, go!'

This time, a sonorous blast of water shot from my Lapras's jaws, and smacked into Kakuna, knocking it over. It was dazed, and repeating the assault led to the virtually immobile pokémon being knocked out for good.

'Not bad so far, but we're only just getting started!' Bugsy lost no confidence, and replaced Kakuna with the next battler. He called out a Pineco, yet another bug pokémon that could defend itself with its shell.

'Right, Marina, try ice shard to start off again!'

'Pineco, use protect!'

Just as in the first battle, the icy gust from Lapras was deflected completely when Pineco shielded itself. Then it came for an attack, launched itself, and hit Marina with a take down.

'Water pulse instead! Come on, you can do this!'

A surge of water shot from her mouth, directly on target, but Bugsy ordered yet another defensive tactic, a rapid spin. Pineco span at high speed, bouncing off most of the water. I groaned, as this battle proved to be simply a test of hitting my opponents. Marina tried each of her attacks again, wearing Pineco down bit by bit as it countered them, but she became worn out doing this as well.

'Use a water pulse, and put all your power into it!' I tried to finish the battle off with one big attack, but Bugsy had a final trick.

'Pineco, now use self-destruct!'

I gasped but had no time for a command; Marina couldn't get away. Pineco glowed brightly and suddenly exploded, creating a full-force blast. There was no escaping it. Dirt from the floor was thrown up and coated the arena with dust. We had to wait to see what the effect was, but it was what I'd feared. Both battlers were completely fainted.

I recalled Marina to her ball, thinking that at least I had the lead at this point. Bugsy was already summoning out his final pokémon, and when it appeared, it was over twice the size of the previous two. A massive green insect with wings and scythes for arms – a Scyther. As cool-looking as it was, it only meant danger for whichever pokémon I sent out.

'I'm gonna battle your bug with my own bug! Give it your best, Vesper!'

I threw out the pokéball containing my little Ledyba. He buzzed into the air, but cowered a little at Scyther's size.

Scyther immediately began the fight with a quick attack. Vesper was hit by it before we even realised that Scyther had moved.

'Vesper, that Scyther's really fast, but just hang in there and practice dodging its attacks!'

Scyther swept its scythes again and again, blindingly fast, and Vesper zipped around through the air, eyeing the blades and keeping out of reach. It worked for a time, but…

'Lediiee!' Vesper was hit again, and quickly tiring. This wasn't going to work.

I tried to keep a confident tone to encourage him. 'Use a supersonic attack!'

My little red ladybug had to fly up high out of reach and then used his wings to make waves of distorted sound. On the ground, Scyther faltered and looked dazed.

'All right! You got it!' I cheered, 'now go on the offensive! Comet punch!'

The Ledyba swooped down into close range and pummelled the larger bug pokémon with his small legs, getting in a quick barrage of punches. I smiled hopefully at the successful hit, but that was when Scyther came back with a vengeance. A sudden slash hurt Vesper badly, and the shock made him turn and try to fly to safety. Scyther showed no mercy and followed up with a pursuit attack, leaping in a flash to stand in Vesper's path and powerfully knocking him down. I knew this was all my poor bug could take, and recalled him gratefully.

'For my last pokémon I choose... Spike!'

The newest member of my team, Spike the Cyndaquil, was released onto the field. I hadn't trained him as much as the others, but as a fire type I still thought he had the best chance.

'No problem, Scyther…' Bugsy smirked, 'let's show them how we deal with fire types!'

'Spike, be careful! Scyther's really fast but try not to let him hit you!'

Scyther started off by trying to quick attack again. He seemed to completely disappear and reappear right by Spike, ready to strike him.

'Cynda-!' Spike was startled, but the shock helped him jump away, and at once the flame on his back ignited.

'Let's use that firepower! Attack with ember!'

I watched Spike bravely launch burning embers at his larger opponent now that his flames were activated. I thought this was sure to cause damage to the bug-type, but Scyther countered by spinning himself on the spot with his blades up protectively, deflecting all the fire. I groaned at how well Bugsy could defy the bug-type stereotype of being weak and easily defeated by teaching his team how to defend themselves so well.

'C'mon Scyther, show them what we're made of! Use your special fury cutter!'

After this command Scyther leapt at Cyndaquil, blades ready, and slashed. The first hit didn't seem to hurt, but Spike wasn't quick enough to escape, and with every blow that landed the damage increased.

'Spike, don't give up! Try a smokescreen!'

Instead of fire, Spike let out a cloud of smoke from his mouth, which immediately halted Scyther's assault. It couldn't see. Spike curled into a little ball and rolled between Scyther's legs to safety, uncurling just behind him.

'Now's your chance, ember again!'

As Scyther stood, blinded, in a smoke cloud which stung his eyes, Spike again sent flaming hot embers out and this time, they hit. Scyther was burned by it and cried out.

'Keep going! Tackle!' I jumped as I said it, desperate to use this chance…

Spike ran at Scyther and collided head-on, knocking Scyther down. It didn't get up.

'Scyther is unable to battle. The battle goes to Cyndaquil. The challenger won the match.'

'I won?!' I just stood there, out of breath from adrenaline. 'I can't believe I won! Spike, you did it!'

'Cynda cyndaquil!' he chirped, and I ran across the field to pick him up and congratulate him, but I stopped. Spike was glowing. His body grew brighter until he was surrounded by light, just like the Pineco did earlier, and for a second I thought he would explode. Instead, Spike changed shape. After a few seconds, instead of a Cyndaquil, Spike had evolved into a Quilava.

'Spike…!'

He grinned up at me, and I picked him up and held him. My first pokémon evolution… Spike no longer resembled a hedgehog, he had a longer body now. He was slightly larger, and seemed more confident, but still happily nuzzled me.

'I hate to break up the happy occasion…' Bugsy interrupted, 'but I think this is what you came for!'

He held out a badge – the Hive Badge. I thanked him for it, and for helping Spike to evolve. Then I rejoined my team-mates to revisit the Pokémon Centre, where my battlers deserved to be healed.

'Well, you actually did it,' Gary said as we walked back, sounding like he was giving a compliment until he added, '…barely.'

'I still got the badge. And I'm so happy for Spike… it was a huge success!'

'You were okay… but don't go getting cocky.'

'Oh please,' I said, trying to match Gary's sarcastic drawl, 'who are you to lecture me about being cocky?'

Gary just smirked. 'When you're as good as me, you're allowed to be.'

I ignored him and talked to Meowth instead, since I had a few questions about what evolution meant for a pokémon.

'Mostly, it's what pokémon dream of doing. They all aspire to it…'

'What about you? D'you think you could evolve?'

'Don't t'ink so. After all, I hate Persians,' he flicked out a claw to emphasise the point.

'That's okay, I like you way better like this, anyway,' I laughed, picking him up and tickling him until he purred.

We all healed and ate at the Pokémon Centre, and checked the map for our next route. The only way to go was to take a path through a forest to get to Goldenrod City, a place I'd heard of for being a heaven for shoppers. Then, that afternoon, I checked back with the pokéball artisan. His granddaughter greeted us again.

'Oh hi!' she beamed, 'I remember you! I can give you your custom pokéballs…' and she handed me some very interestingly designed pokéballs. I'd never seen anything like these.

'That white apricorn made this 'fast ball'…' and she gave me what looked like a regular pokéball, only with a yellow zigzag on the top, 'that'll work well on quick pokémon that try to escape. And the blue apricorn made this 'lure ball'. It'll be good for catching a pokémon you fished up.' That ball was aqua blue, with a red stripe and yellow lines. Then she gave me one that looked special… the ball was completely black, but with a thin red stripe, and gold trim.

'That one's a ball that will really make a pokémon like you if you catch it in there.'

'Wow…!' I marvelled at it, 'these are great! Thank you…'

'No problem! Kurt's the master at pokéball crafting!'

I thanked her again, and we left. I got the new balls out to look at, in awe of the craftsmanship and wondering when I'd get to use these special devices.

'You could've got some too, Gary,' I said when I saw him glancing over, 'but you thought gathering apricorns was stupid.'

Hey, it's not what you've got, it's how you use it…'

I just giggled at his protests.


	13. Shadow of the Forest

I don't own any copyrighted characters, ideas, plots or Pokémon used in this fanfiction.

**The Johto League**

**Chapter 13**

**Shadow of the Forest**

Getting to Goldenrod City didn't sound too hard. All we had to do was travel through Ilex Forest. This forest, however, was the biggest in Johto. It might even take a few days to walk from one end to the other. I asked Gary if we could skip the forest by flying over on his Fearow but he refused, intending to comb each area for rare and strong pokémon to catch. I knew he was right, really, and I shouldn't miss an opportunity to train my team.

The forest itself looked intimidating as we approached it. It didn't just cover a large area, the trees were large, too. They climbed taller than any trees I'd seen before, making an expansive canopy of leaves and pine needles. Gary, Meowth and I walked straight in without hesitation.  
Immediately it was as if night had descended. I gasped. The trees shut out the light almost completely, and it was near impossible to see. I could see the daylight ahead of us, and only perpetual darkness ahead.

'Gary… are you sure this is a good idea?'

'Don't be such a wuss!'

Even though we stuck to the path the forest floor made walking difficult, covered in needles and a few fallen branches. Meowth found it too awkward to get around with his tiny legs, so I offered him a ride. Having the furry little guy nestle on my shoulder made me feel slightly more secure in this massive forest… but I still felt miniscule. The trees towered over us, forming a complete high ceiling through which no light could break. The thick scent of pine rose from the undergrowth.

As we pressed on we adjusted slightly to the low light, and found it easier to move. There was a path, and we tried to stick to it. Meowth's sharp eyes were a big help in navigating through the gloom. Even deeper still we found there were abundant pokémon living here. A lot of bug types; Caterpie and Weedle, Kakuna, Venonat. The trees made it a hospitable place for grass types too, with Oddish and Bellsprout hiding themselves among plants. All was quiet, though, and only by staying quiet could we see the pokémon and not scare them away. This forest had an oppressing, almost authoritative, air, which made you want to stay silent out of some form of respect.

We had to spend a couple of nights camping out. At night time, which looked no different from the day, groups of Zubat would come out and soar high over our heads. Passing through the very deepest section, where the trees grew thick and we had to climb in-between them, we discovered Pineco that grew from branches, Exeggcute that would stare and mutter to each other as we went by, and Beedrill that we were lucky enough not to disturb.

Having spend a few days travelling and starting to miss the sunlight, we also got used to the surroundings and had no problem disturbing the peace for pokémon battles. Gary caught himself many types of bugs that were just sent home to his grandfather to take care of. I couldn't find anything that looked worthwhile… but we did find several trainers in the forest hunting for bugs. Mostly young boys wearing shorts and waving nets around. I did a good job of breaking the monotony by challenging everyone I could find and won most of the battles, although having to use a few antidotes from my bag when my pokémon became poisoned by bug venom.

I was just returning Spike after he brought down yet another trainer's Butterfree, and for once we saw something different up ahead. A clearing opened up, in the middle of which stood a small wooden structure. It had posts and a roof, and looked incredibly old. But there was nothing in it.

'The Forest Shrine…' I read from a plaque.

'It's pretty boring. Hurry up, I think we can get out of this place today,' Gary was already walking ahead.

'Built to honour the forest's protector…' were the only words given as a description. Something about the mossy, time-worn wooden shrine made me want to know; to examine. But it didn't look like it should be touched.

'I wonder who the forest's protector is.'

'Maybe a pokémon?' Meowth ventured. We had no other clues so I left the shrine and hurried on to catch Gary up, still wondering why I had felt like the shrine drew me in.

I hoped for a second that Gary hadn't gone so far ahead that I'd lost him in the woods, but soon he came back into view. And he had already challenged somebody else to a battle. That was typical. I look away just for one second…

'Parasect, use your scratch attack!'

Like most of the usual bug catchers, he was an overconfident kid. They all thought bug types were the best in the world and were unbeatable. Gary hardly even looked interested as the kid's massive red mushroom-bearing pokémon approached his Eevee.

'Reflect it. Then use take down.'

Eevee crouched, defensive, as the Parasect's claw came down. But the pincer his an almost solid barrier that Eevee had formed around itself, making blue sparks fly on contact. The moment the attack failed Eevee launched himself fully at his opponent, his small fluffy body doing a surprising amount of damage. The kid was shocked.

'Don't take that from such a wimpy little Eevee! Suck its health with leech life!'

The area they battled in seemed brighter than what we'd been used to. I realised on looking up that the trees had thinned. We must have been nearing the outer edge, because light was finally filtering down through breaks in the canopy. There had been no sense of time in that dark forest, until now, when I saw the black sky. It was night, and the moonlight patterned on the ground seemed blazing after so long in the murky wilderness.

Eevee simply used a quick attack to avoid Parasect's pincers and pummel the large bug. Eevee could tackle with such powerful force that on impact a cloud of spores erupted from Parasect's back, settling as it fainted. The bug catcher glared at Gary while he returned his pokémon, and pushed past us, muttering.

'What kind of guy uses an Eevee, anyway… pshht…'

Gary ignored him and went to Eevee's side. He petted him.

'Way to go, Eevee. You did me proud…' Gary smirked, 'you always do.'

Maybe Gary had more of a bond with his pokémon than I'd thought. It was only natural to form mutual respect as a trainer, especially with your starter.

Eevee nuzzled Gary's hand, and licked him fondly. Then he looked up, and glowed.

I walked forward when I realised what was happening. Gary was in shock. We all stared as his closest friend and partner grew in size, his body entirely white and almost blinding. I thought Eevee could only evolve from elemental stones…

The light got brighter, and so did the light from above, moonlight igniting the area with its pearly glow. Eevee's light rippled off into a shower of sparks and he shook himself, looking at his new body.

'U-umbre!'

'What… is that…' Gary stuttered.

He was too in awe, so I got out my pokédex.

'Umbreon, the moonlight pokémon,' it intoned. 'Evolves rarely from Eevee when exposed to the moon's energy. When in darkness the rings on its body will glow.'

'A-amazing..' Gary actually hugged his pokémon. 'You actually evolved! Wow…'

I let Gary finish his emotional moment, which actually, didn't last that long.

'Isn't this the coolest looking evolution of Eevee you've ever seen?'

'He does look pretty badass,' I admitted. Umbreon smiled. We continued on, nearly out of this place by now, and the remainder of the way was lit up by Umbreon's night-glowing.


	14. No Pokémon For You

I don't own any copyrighted characters, ideas, plots or Pokémon used in this fanfiction.

**The Johto League**

**Chapter 14**

**No Pokémon For You**

**  
**  
When morning came we were still on our way towards Goldenrod, having left the forest far behind. I never thought I'd be so happy just to see the sun rise. In fact it took us a while to adjust to seeing in daylight again, the sun was blinding at first.

Umbreon stayed with us, out of his ball, since the night before. Either Gary didn't think it was fair to confine his favourite pokémon away after getting a new form or he just wanted to show off, or maybe both. Umbreon's jet black fur glinted with sleek shine in the sun. He also seemed to like that all the conversation was about him.

'Doesn't it seem weird? He was your first pokémon and now he's… different.'

For once Gary didn't act pretentious. 'I see what you mean, but it's not. I didn't expect Eevee to evolve but I like him this way.'

'So why didn't you ever evolve Eevee into something else?'

'I know the three stone evolutions, but none of them… felt right. I already have water, fire and electric types. Maybe I even had a hope that one day, if I waited, he'd evolve into something undiscovered.'

'Speaking of that, you'd better call Professor Oak and tell him about it. He'd be really excited to hear about Umbreon, I bet.'

'Oh yeah! Of course… hey, remind me to use the videophone in the Pokémon Centre when we get there.'

Umbreon happily bounded on ahead and made the most of his longer legs.

'Sheesh, someone's happy today,' Meowth quipped from my shoulder, and went back to his cat-nap atop my backpack, soaking up the warm sun. A little further on, we saw more than fields. We were walking alongside the sea - vast, sparkling blue filling up the horizon.

'Maybe there's some water pokémon around here…' I said, thinking about my lure ball.

'No time for fishing!' Gary declared, 'first thing is to tell Gramps about my Umbreon!'

'Pfft. You mean brag,' I muttered.

We were cut short when something actually materialised in front of us. A blue glow followed by a something appearing. At first I thought it looked like a child… but the light died down and whatever it was had a yellow body, a sturdy tail… ears…

'Hey, an Abra… how lucky!' Gary swiftly pulled out a pokéball. The Abra saw this, looked startled, and prepared to teleport again.

'Not so fast! Umbreon, pursuit attack!'

Umbreon was there in a flash, before Abra could escape, barrelled into it and knocked it over. Umbreon pinned its opponent down as Gary threw the ball. Although fast, Abra are weak, so being cornered it put up very little resistance, and Gary caught it.

'No applause, please,' Gary chuckled as he picked the ball up, just before it disappeared on auto-transport.

I blinked, 'Wow'.

'Just watch and learn,' he grinned at me.

'Hey, stop treating me like I'm a newbie! I've caught lots of pokémon…'

'When I had been a trainer as long as you I'd already caught three times as many.'

'Well, maybe I don't care about catching a lot… I just want to train them right! …Besides, I can catch them fine, just watch…' I started looking around as if there would be a convenient nearby pokémon to wildly throw balls at.

Gary patted Umbreon and walked on.

I kept looking around for a wild pokémon as we walked. I walked off the path a few times to search the surrounding grass but had no luck. Maybe Gary wasn't really good, just lucky, I kept thinking.

Eventually I gave up, sighed, and stared out at the nearby ocean.

'Maybe we should stop for a few minutes,' said Gary. I smiled bri efly at him and he got out a sandwich to eat. I was getting tired, so I sat on a small rock.

After just a couple of seconds the rock started wiggling. I shot back up and looked down, where what I'd been sitting on changed shape from a stone into a pink… blob.

'Ditto!' it squeaked.

Gary burst out laughing. 'You SAT on a Ditto ohmygod ahahaa!'

But I knew what I was going to do, I would act quickly and not let a rare pokémon like Ditto escape.

'Spike, come out and use quick attack!' I threw the ball and my Quilava burst out, flying straight into the Ditto in one bound. I nearly cheered, but Spike came flying straight back, flung by Ditto's rubbery body. Ditto morphed and became a Quilava, every cell of its body identical to Spike's now.

'Well, it's not rubber any more. Quick attack again!'

Spike rushed forward, but Ditto used a smokescreen. Spike couldn't see. He dashed blindly to try and escape the cloud. Ditto took advantage of this and hit Spike back with a quick attack.

I was stunned. This Ditto was using my own pokémon's attacks against me, better than we could! That wasn't right.

'You can do it! Use ember!'

But Spike couldn't start his flame collar in the smoke, and after another hit from the replicated Quilava, he fell, dazed.

'No, Spike…' I stood, stunned. Ditto's form melted back into an amorphous blob and it slithered away to find a more peaceful place to sleep.

I picked up my weakened pokémon and stroked him. He whimpered, sad to have lost.

'Don't worry about it. You did your best.'

'Qui… l-lava?'

'Sure, I'll get you one at the Pokémon Centre. Just rest in your ball for now,' I could feel him relax as he turned to pure energy and was taken back into his pokéball.

Walking was quiet from then on.

'…I wouldn't know how to train a Ditto, anyway,' I said, defensively, to no-one in particular.

'It would be tricky…' Gary agreed, 'you'd have to know the skills of any pokémon you could possibly come up against.'

I repeated to myself that a Ditto would be too difficult to have on my team and didn't even notice anything else until Gary stopped walking. We'd come up to a large house in the middle of this field. I looked ahead and could see, past a plateau of swaying grass and treetops, the skyscrapers of Goldenrod and the infamous Radio Tower.

'Gary, look, we're almost there!'

He stayed where he was. 'I wanna find out what they do here!' And he went on to the house's front door. A wooden sign stood outside that Gary must have read. "Pokémon Daycare Centre – all pokémon welcome!"

The front door opened as I approached Gary. A kindly elderly lady stood there, beaming.

'You must be trainers! Oh, come in, please!'

She led us inside. We'd only managed a few steps down the hallway when a herd of small pokémon hurtled past, nearly causing us to trip. Then they disappeared as quickly as they'd come.

'Mind the little ones!' said the old lady.

We made it to what looked like their living room without being randomly attacked again. It was a peculiar room. Down one wall were several chests of drawers, all lined up, with the drawers labelled. On the other side, a bookcase filled with files. Several cushions lay piled in the corner, with a Drowzee sleeping on them. A Snubbull snuffled around quietly in the corner.

'Welcome to the Pokémon Daycare!' the old lady said, immensely proud.

'It looks like you to amazing business!' I said.

'Yes, quite!' she beamed, 'many trainers leave their precious pokémon here to live and grow. They can come back whenever they like to pick them up. Not only do we feed them the finest speciality foods and let them run wild, as pokémon should, we give them daily training so they'll steadily grow and you'll have a stronger pokémon when you come back!'

Gary was silent, engrossed in observing the Daycare's system. She noticed and explained,

'We note down every pokémon and their owner, so they'll never get mixed up, and keep the registers in those files. And all the pokéballs are in those labelled drawers, but we never use them! My husband is out in the paddock, would you like to see?'

We all obligingly followed her out to the back, and were stunned. At the back of their house was an entire enclosed field, filled with all sorts of pokémon. Gloom and Tangela were resting in a plant garden, a graceful Ponyta galloped across the grass, we even saw a Rhyhorn in the background. A nearby pond had Slowpoke around the edge, soaking their tails, and many, many Magikarp leapt up from the still water. A couple of Growlithe came over and tugged one the bottom of my jeans. They were so cute, I couldn't help petting them, and they yapped happily. But since I was kneeling, they noticed Meowth and tried to jump up and play with him. The poor cat didn't like this and climbed onto my head, yowling. I laughed.

'Oh, new customers?' a voice said, and we turned to see an aged man approaching.

'I can't believe you have so many pokémon!' I burst out. The man chuckled.

'We are well-trusted to raise pokémon. And darn it if watching them grow isn't the most rewarding business in the world! Now, sonny, that's a nice Umbreon you have. Why not check it in for a stay?'

'Oh, sorry sir, but my Eevee only just evolved, so I… wait, you've seen one before?'

'Oh, running this Daycare I reckon I've seen nearly every pokémon there be!'

I was lost in thought, wondering if I'd actually want to let this kind couple look after my pokémon… they were awfully nice, but on the other hand I only just had enough pokémon for a full party. I decided against it, and so did Gary, who preferred to keep track of all his pokémon's growth.

'But I think it's a great Daycare! And it's so nice of you to run it… I'd love to get to raise all sorts of pokémon all day like that,' I said.

Gary spoke up, 'Oh, sorry, but that reminds me… can I used your videophone? I wanted to call my grandpa, Professor Oak.'

The lady cooed with admiration and took Gary back into the house.

'So, you think you'd like to be a pokémon breeder?' the old man said.

I looked out at the field of happy, energetic pokémon. 'A breeder?'

'That's what they call those who like raising pokémon proper-like! And, of course, sometimes they do breed. We find pokémon eggs from time to time.'

'Eggs?! Really?'

'Oh yes! We've never seen how they get there… but when two pokémon bond, we know it will happen. But they aren't truly wild, so the eggs have a hard time hatching. That's why we call up the trainers of the parent pokémon, and ask if they'd like to take the egg with them. Eggs cared for by trainers will always hatch'

'So one of the trainers comes back to get the egg.'

'Well, we'd hope so. Just the other day the trainers came back to take the mother and father of this egg, but neither wanted to raise a baby. So we've kept it, but it would be better in a trainer's hands…'

'I'll take it!' I immediately said, gleefully.

We returned to the main room of the house where Gary was still calling his grandfather.

'No, really, I still want to train Umbreon myself.'

'I understand. But a couple of new evolutions in Eevee's line are being studied, and the scientific world doesn't have many real specimens to observe… and he looks like a fine specimen!' I heard Professor Oak from the speakers. Umbreon jumped up at this to look at the screen, baying happily.

'Hi Professor!' I couldn't help edging into the screen for a quick hello.

'Oh, hi, Holly! How's your journey going? Have you sent many pokémon to Professor Elm?'

'…Not really. But I'm fine! And we're at a Daycare Centre where they said we could have a pokémon egg!'

'Really?' said Gary and his grandfather simultaneously.

'Yeah! But we have to keep it so it will hatch, so you can't study it. Sorry!'

'I doubt eggs can be transferred easily,' Oak said, 'and I won't ask you to come all the way back to Pallet Town for delivery! But this should be interesting. Tell me what hatches from it, won't you?'

'Okay,' we both agreed. Then we said goodbye.

The elderly couple brought out their abandoned egg for us. I'd heard about pokémon eggs, especially since Professor Elm had tried to study them, but this was my first time actually seeing a real one. A real pokémon, before life.

They set the egg down on their table. It was in an egg holder; a glass jar to protect it with a cushioned bottom. The egg itself was bright, glossy yellow, and had jagged black stripes around the sides.

'A real egg – oh this is so cool! It's like we're gonna be parents!'

'You're such a girl!' Gary sneered.

'Yeah, I am, thanks for noticing.'

'Just one thing though,' said the Daycare man, 'when the baby hatches one of you will need to catch it. The baby will already be attached to you for bringing it into the world and won't resist being caught. But it can only be registered to one of you, like all pokémon. So, to avoid having a fight over it, you should decide who it belongs to now. That way you don't have to carry around a pokémon that won't be yours!'

'It was my idea!' I pouted.

'Yeah, but I'm the better trainer. We don't want to cripple it before it's been born by leaving it with you!'

'Gary! Come on, I only just have enough pokémon as it is.'

The kindly lady interrupted us, 'You two should settle this with the fairest possible method – a game of Onix, Paras, Scyther!'

Gary and I took stances facing each other. With our hands behind our back, we slowly counted in unison.

'One… two.. three!'

And we brought our hands out. I made my hand into the shape of two claws for Paras, and Gary had two fingers extended for Scyther.

'Ahaa! Yes!' he jeered, 'Scyther cuts Paras!'

'Aww, man…'

I had no choice but to let Gary accept the egg. We thanked the old couple, wished them luck, and stepped back outside ready to complete this leg of our journey. I looked down enviously at the golden egg inside the case in Gary's arms. He suddenly looked disappointed as it dawned on him.

'Oh man… now I have to _carry_ this thing…'


	15. Goldenrod Opportunity

I don't own any copyrighted characters, ideas, plots or Pokémon used in this fanfiction.

**The Johto League**

**Chapter 15**

**Goldenrod Opportunity **

**  
**  
If Goldenrod City could be summed up in one word, it was 'disorientating'. I'd never seen buildings so tall in my life, and I had no idea how to find my way in the skyscraper maze. Right after leaving the Pokémon Centre we seemed to be swallowed into the jumbled crowd and immediately got lost. Gary claimed that he still knew the way.

'D'you think we're getting close yet, Gary?' I whined, dodging oncoming people. There was no response. 'Gary?' I turned and scanned for his face among the crowd. He had disappeared.

I groaned. 'I guess it's just you and me then…'

Meowth nudged me from my shoulder. 'Is dat really such a bad thing?'

'Aww, you know what I meant. Let's keep going…'

Meowth perched on top of my head and acted as lookout to try and spot the Pokémon Centre, or the Gym we'd been looking for, above the crowd. After several minutes it seemed like we'd been walking in circles. Instead we tried heading towards the tallest building we could see. The enormous grey skyscraper seemed even higher when we got up close, and we almost had to lean backwards to see the top.

'What's it for?' Meowth pondered. I noticed a sign in front of the building and read it.

'"Goldenrod Radio Tower", hm,' I walked over and tried to look inside, but there was a man near the entrance dressed in shady clothes who kept watching us. Instead we walked in another direction. I kept wondering where Gary had got to.

We passed by a station with a train track leading away, right through the middle of the city. I checked inside and found out the station ran magnet trains, from here straight through to Kanto. A fast train going all that way really would have been fun and I hoped I could go on it one day. We kept on looking around the city.

Finally I collapsed on a bench – it was near useless trying to find one person here, and I was getting tired.

'Oh well,' Meowth consoled, patting my hair, 'y'know we can probably have more fun without dat guy.'

Then I realised this was true, and we went shopping.

Goldenrod's famous department store didn't disappoint. They had all kinds of pokémon items, medicine, vitamins, interesting gadgets and that wasn't all. I purchased a few more balls, trying to remember that catching more would be a good idea. Meowth and I browsed a lot of the store and I forced myself not to spend money all over the place. We weren't exactly that rich.

Feeling more at ease and independent now, we continued exploring. The city looked daunting at first but I didn't need Gary to help me all the time. I started enjoying being lost, especially when we happened to find a Pokémon Salon.

'Hi there!' a chirpy young woman greeted me as I went in, 'would you and your Meowth like a beauty treatment?'

'B-beauty treatment?' I echoed, 'wait, you do pokémon too?'

'Of course, that's what makes it a Pokémon Salon! We offer treatments for any pokémon you have.'

'Well, all right then…'

The woman led me in, and Meowth hissed in my ear.

'But I don't wanna take a bath!'

'Okay, okay, don't worry.'

The assistant continued, 'Right here we have all kinds of special therapy and cleansing routines. Just let out your pokémon and we'll get started.'

My pokémon looked confused to all be released at once, and some were nervous at the idea of a human spa, but quite quickly they took to being pampered. Marina was set up in the king-size bathtub with bubbles and bath-salts, which she loved, and she looked rejuvenated. After that she had her shell nicely waxed by the salon's Machoke.

'It looks like she's really enjoying it,' I said, amazed, as my pokémon and I looked on.

'Now let's see what we can do for the rest of your pokémon…'

The salon also had a mud-bath which the assistant showed to Needles, and the Sandshrew gleefully dove in. Spike the Quilava was shown into the poke-sauna. Meowth was still worried about being bathed, but the assistant put him and Scout onto a table instead and had them lie down. Four or five Ledyba arrived and used their many little arms and hands to provide a massage. Meowth sighed and Scout chirped; they liked it. My own Ledyba, Vesper, waved to the others of his kind while I helped out by shining his delicate wing-case.

'It's so good to see pokémon enjoying being pampered,' the assistant said as we watched their various treatments. 'So now, what about you?'

'Me?'

'Yes, you. This isn't just a pokémon salon, you know,' she laughed, and sat me in a padded chair. 'We help pokémon feel good, and we make their trainers feel good about themselves.'

I could hardly protest, I just watched as she grabbed some scissors and began styling my hair. Chunks of dark blonde strands fell to the floor. In only a few minutes my hair was cut, feathered, styled, sprayed and dried.

'Okay, you can look now,' the assistant said teasingly.

I cautiously opened one eye, then stared at the mirror in disbelief.

'…I like it!'

The pokémon and I left the salon feeling ten times better than we had when we went in. I paid and returned Marina, but left the others free to walk in the open so they could enjoy feeling fresh and limber. We found a nearby café to have lunch and found directions back to the pokémon centre at last.

I was genuinely surprised to see Gary waiting by the entrance. After being swept up by the big city I'd forgotten about finding him again. He gave me a strange look as I approached and I wondered what was wrong.

'…What have you done to your hair?' he sneered.

I remembered the haircut.

'Oh. What, you don't like it?'

'You look like a girl.'

'I don't know why it's so hard for you to remember, Gary, but I _am_ a girl.'

'…Whatever, obviously it was important enough to ditch me for while we were supposed to be finding the Gym. You'll probably like it in there.'

'Ditch you?! I got lost, that's all, and-! …Wait, did you actually find the Gym?'

He held up a small silver diamond. A Gym badge.

'You already won?!'

'Yeah, see, people get things done when they're not running off to have their nails painted,' Gary said, shifting the pokémon egg container in his arms.

'Look, I didn't…' I decided to give this up, 'forget it, can you just take me back to the Gym?'

So Gary started leading me back to where he got his badge.

'What kind of Gym is it? What should I use?'

Gary decided not to actually tell me. 'I said before that you'll probably like it. It's such a girly Gym.'

'A girly Gym…?'

I saw what he meant when we got there. Inside, the Gym was decorated with a pretty pink pattern, and the room was covered in pots of flowers.'

'A grass type Gym?' I guessed.

'Nope, not quite,' Gary walked further in until we found a group of girls. One of them, pink-haired, was crying, and her friends trying to comfort her.

'What do you want, you big meanie?!' squeaked the pink-haired girl as Gary approached, 'you already got your badge!'

Gary smirked at me. 'Meet the Gym Leader.'

I nearly made an incredulous reply, but bit my tongue just in time. She looked like such a cry-baby.

''Scuse me, I'm looking to earn a badge, actually,' I said, 'that is, as long as you're not too upset.'

'Oh!' replied the girl, drying her eyes, 'well, that's different. Maybe this will cheer me up. I'm Whitney, by the way.'

I introduced myself too and shook her hand. She seemed much happier to battle a fellow girl than Gary, but I knew he probably appeared to be scarily ruthless.

'We'll use two pokémon in this match,' Whitney explained as we took our places at the battleground. 'I'll go first. I choose you, Miltank!'

She threw her pokéball and released Miltank, a cow pokémon. Like most of the Gym, it was pink. I couldn't tell whether it was funny or terrifying. I chose to send out my Sandshrew to begin.

'Go, Miltank, stomp that mouse!'

Miltank jumped, intending to land on top of my pokémon.

'Defense curl, Needles, quick!'

Needles responded immediately and tucked his body in, becoming a perfect yellow ball. Instead of hurting him when Miltank landed he was kicked away and bounced harmlessly.

'Now use your sand attack!'

Needles unfurled his body. With Miltank about to bear down on him he kicked up dust in his opponent's face, throwing Miltank off.

'Okay, let's really show them what we're made of. Miltank, use rollout!'

I was amazed to see Miltank curl up her body just like Needles had. She rolled towards my Sandshrew, picked up speed, and collided with him on the way past. Miltank kept rolling and made a u-turn. She came back for another hit, faster this time.

'Needles, um… quick, defense curl again!'

Both of the battling pokémon were balls. Miltank came faster and faster and hit Needles again, but this time he bounced. He bounced to the side and off the wall, and back, while Miltank steered herself around for another collision. Every time she made a hit the Sandshrew's compact body bounced off faster. Finally Miltank came to a stop and looked around, only for Needles to bounce back in and hit her with a smack. His little body seemed to do a lot of damage at that speed. Miltank suffered, dazed.

'Awesome!' I couldn't believe that somehow it had worked, 'quick, poison sting!'

Needles shot poison spines at Miltank like darts and the poison was too much for Miltank to take. She fell.

'No! Miltank!' Whitney seemed distraught, 'I'm gonna get you for this!'

I waited for her next pokémon nervously, wondering what manner of beast would come out to avenge her pink cow.

Whitney's final pokémon appeared. It looked like a dog. A dog wearing a dress. It was still pink.

'Snubbull, go get that meanie!'

The Snubbull ran headfirst into battle and tackled Needles. Needles span into a ball again. He tried an attack and then tried to dodge… leading to him being chased around the field rolling away from the persistent dog-pokémon.

Whitney giggled. 'Okay, enough playtime. Show 'em your special move.'

Snubbull grunted and sat up, waving its arms as if in a trance. The little pink pokémon suddenly glowed blue. Both Needles and I dropped our guard and stared. Snubbull stopped chanting and without warning, sprayed a jet of water from his mouth.

'What?!' I cried out, but Needles had already fainted.

'That was a metronome!' I heard Gary show off his knowledge as I recalled my battler, 'it lets her pokémon use absolutely any attack!'

'You're kidding me!' I said back to him.

'Yeah, good luck dealing with that,' he just grinned.

I thought for a second and picked another pokéball. Scout was called out. I knew I had higher level pokémon, but she was alert and fast, good for dodging whatever I had thrown at me, and had the least weaknesses since I could be facing anything.

The action got back underway fast. Snubbull chased Scout around the field attempting to bite her. Scout started becoming too scared and ran in a panic.

'No, Scout, calm down! You'll be okay, just concentrate and stay on your toes!'

She was knocked down by another tackle. Scout got herself back up and kept an eye on her opponent instead.

'Bite that Sentret, Snubbull!'

'Quick attack!'

Snubbull lunged and Scout leapt aside, only to launch herself back and strike a blow.

'Try again Snubbull, metronome!'

Again Snubbull chanted. I told Scout to stop and pay attention. She did so, and was able to react when Snubbull unleashed a stream of fire from its miniature maw. She only got singed.

'Keep trying! Metronome metronome, metronome!'

Scout ran in all directions, narrowly escaping water spray, arcs of electricity, telekinesis and forceful gusts of wind. She was confused and tired.

'Nearly there Snubbull, one more time!'

I knew Scout hardly had any energy left. I was about to order her to attack regardless, but there was no time. Snubbull finished chanting. I expected the worst. Instead Snubbull fell to the ground and flopped uselessly.

I hardly stopped to wonder, I just acted. 'Go Scout! Now!'

She assaulted her incapacitated opponent with a flurry of blows, swipe after swipe.

Snubbull didn't get up to make another attack.

'Oh no, no!' Whitney cried.

I ran to Scout, ecstatic. She looked at me, smiling through the bruises, and collapsed from tiredness. I caught her light body quickly and cradled her.

'Great job. I'm proud of you.'

Scout chirped and her brown body became white. I blinked at the glow and gasped. Scout grew, evolving in my arms. Instead of her cute, stubby former body, now she was sleek and long, striped.

'Furrrrret,' she purred happily.

I stood, still holding her, and stroked her fur.

'That was pretty,' said Whitney, grudgingly. She held out the badge for me.

'Thanks,' I accepted it, 'I liked that battle. Metronome really makes things interesting. I wish I had a pokémon who knew it.'

'Really?' Whitney sniffled less, 'well, I raised that Snubbull from an egg I got at the Daycare Centre. I've trained him since he was born.'

'Wow, that's sweet.'

'If you girls are done yet…?' Gary interrupted us.

I thanked Whitney again to try and cheer her up and we left to go heal up Scout's new form.


	16. Swarm and Fuzzy Feeling

I don't own any copyrighted characters, ideas, plots or Pokémon used in this fanfiction.

**The Johto League**

**Chapter 16**

**Swarm and Fuzzy Feeling**

**  
**  
The next day we left Goldenrod City and travelled down route 35. The wide path surrounded by forest wasn't short of trainers and I took on as many as were up for it to keep on training.

'Great going there, Spike,' I said as I returned my Quilava, having just beaten a boy and his Venonat. He also called back his pokémon battler and tried to praise its performance.

'I think we're nearing the end of the route,' Gary interjected, 'let's hurry it up, we must be getting close to the National Park, and they're bound to have interesting pokémon to catch there.' He was still holding up the pokémon egg dutifully.

'You're moving on already?' questioned the boy I just defeated.

'Yeah, we're heading for Ecruteak City,' I replied, 'why?'

'Aw, don't go yet! Don't you know it's Yanma season?'

'Yanma season…?' I blinked.

The kid jumped in excitement to tell us. 'At a certain time of year, right now, all these Yamna start swarming around here, somewhere. Yanma's usually a really rare pokémon! I've always wanted one.'

'A rare pokémon?' Gary was not going to let the idea go now. 'There can't be any harm in trying to find this thing for a little while.'

'Well, sure, maybe I'll get lucky,' I sighed, 'So where are the swarms?'

'Over there in the forest, me and all my bug catcher pals have been searching there since this morning. Some of them caught one already. I should get back because I don't want to miss out! Follow me, if you want.'

So Gary, Meowth and I tagged along.

'Oh, what's your name?' I asked.

'I'm Arnie,' grinned the boy. We did a round of introductions as we walked further into the forest. As we progressed Arnie took out his large bug net. 'Okay, we're getting closer… I think I hear something…'

I heard it too, there was something approaching. There was no time to wonder what it was before a couple of rowdy young boys burst out of the undergrowth.

'Hey Arnie! Where were you?'

'I got some people to join the hunt!' he replied. 'Have you found any?'

'Not many… only a few people caught one so far,' came the disappointed reply, 'but I know one of us'll catch one. They're just better at hiding this year!'

The boys split up again, brandishing their bug nets, and we helped them continue searching for a pokémon even though I wouldn't recognise it if I found it.

~ * ~

A tiny dot appeared in the sky, growing larger. Two charred individuals fell out of the clouds and landed somewhere in a forest. The one with long red hair picked herself up first, growling at the state of her appearance.

'Every time! Why does this happen every time?!'

Her blue-haired companion watched her storming off. 'I know,' he lamented, 'it's not fair, is it Jess.'

'I could do without your constant whining, James,' she spat back, 'so where are we this time?'

'I don't know. It's rather difficult to get your bearings after blasting off,' he sighed. 'Sometimes I wonder if trying and failing to steal the same Pikachu for years isn't a lost cause.'

'You won't be saying that when we finally succeed, and the boss showers us with riches! Now get a move on, we need to figure out where we've landed.'

The two unfortunate thieves brushed themselves off and started traipsing through the forest.

'Jessie, do you think it's time we went back to trying to re-recruit Meowth?'

'Maybe it is. Depends on where we are. The little twerps Meowth's with are harder to track down.'

'I still can't believe he up and left us!' James looked immensely saddened. 'After all we've been through. Stealing hasn't been as fun without that loud-Meowth around.'

Jessie looked down on him, 'Defectors earn no respect from us, or anyone in Team Rocket!' she declared. '…But… I miss him too.'

They both stopped abruptly, having reached a forest clearing, and noticed several kids running back and forth.

Jessie watched them in confusion. 'I guess asking kids for directions is better than none at all,' she said with distaste.

James walked forward and tried to stop one of the boys to politely pose a question.

'Excuse me young lad, what are you doing?'

'How come you adults are here?' the boy responded.

'Adult?!' Jessie fumed, 'why, I don't look a day over sixteen!'

The boy just blinked and continued, 'there's a special swarm of Yanma around here right now. We're trying to catch them!'

'Yanma? What pokémon is that?' inquired James.

'Not many people know it, it's super rare! Better hurry up and get one!' and the boy dashed off to rejoin the hunt.

Jessie and James glanced at each other.

'A super-rare pokémon?'

'In a swarm?'

They both grinned deviously, imagining presenting an army of this rare pokémon to their boss.

~ * ~

Arnie halted us abruptly as he saw a flash of red fly past. He and his buddies were in awe. They motioned to us to keep quiet and follow.

'I hope you guys catch this thing soon…' murmured Meowth, ''cause I'm getting hungry…'

I shushed him and we tiptoed on after the bug catchers. They tracked their quarry carefully and quietly until we got to an area with distorted undergrowth.

Arnie opened his pokéball, releasing his Venonat.

'Venonat, d'you see anything if you scan this area?'

Venonat chirped and looked around, observing the surroundings closely with his compound bug eyes. Then he chirped again excitedly.

'What is it Venonat? Are they in there?'

'I think Venonat means he can see a whole lot of them… he thinks this is the Yanma nest,' I chipped in, hoping nobody would ask how I understood when I didn't understand that myself.

The boys all whispered excitedly, knowing they were close. I could tell Gary was impatient, wanting to show the kids how it was done.

'Ready Venonat? Okay, go flush 'em out!'

Venonat jumped down into the bushes and searched out the nesting pokémon. The whole area buzzed to life as over a dozen long, red pokémon appeared out of hiding. They darted back and forth, almost too fast to see, but a few glimpses here and there and I could tell they were dragonfly-shaped, about as long as my entire arm, with green goggle markings and a large wingspan.

Gary and I stood up to call out a pokémon and attempt a capture. Some more bug catchers heard the commotion and arrived quickly, readying their pokéballs to finally make the capture.

In the moment as we readied ourselves we heard a noise like a shot. A massive net flew outstretched from just outside the nest. The net closed in and engulfed every Yanma that had been flitting around the trees, and they all cried out in surprise and distress. The net closed off, trapping them. Arnie cried out, seeing that his Venonat was captured too.

Gloating laughter rang through the forest. We watched helplessly as two people stepped out, wearing Rocket uniforms, one of them holding the net gun and drawing in their impressive capture.

'Prepare for trouble!'

'And make it-- …wait, Meowth?!'

Jessie and James stared at me, or rather, stared at Meowth, who jumped off my shoulder. The rest of their motto was forgotten.

'What do you guys think ya doin'?!'

Jessie chuckled to herself. 'Well, well, if that isn't a nice coincidence. We get a haul of rare bug pokémon, and we can nab Meowth while we're here,' she took the net gun from James and ordered him to be the retriever.

'Just leave me alone, you guys!' Meowth protested, and I picked him up to try and keep him away. James grabbed for Meowth's body and pulled. 'Unhand me!' his cat-like yelps hurt my ears.

'Come on Meowth, it's us! We can … be a… family again!' James grunted, pulling at the cat pokémon's feet. I worried that if I pulled back I'd hurt him so my grip loosened, and James tugged my pokémon away.

'Meowth, no!'

Jessie laughed again as James returned to her with Meowth struggling in his grasp. 'Thank you, kiddies! Time is money, so we'll be going now.'

'You can't do this!' I yelled, 'Meowth doesn't want anything to do with you! And you can't take all those Yanma, either!'

'Why not?' James chortled, 'these are just wild pokémon, and we captured them! Too bad! If you do anything, you would be stealing from us!'

Arnie ran forward, upset. 'B-but my Venonat's in there too!'

'Venonat, nat…' the fuzzy bug pokémon cried out, trapped in the net. The cries of all the Yanma joined it.

'So long, suckers,' Jessie beamed, preparing to haul the net away while James kept a hold on Meowth.

'Okay, this has gone on long enough,' I actually felt my heart leap hopefully when I heard Gary say that, with an expression that surely not even the Boss of Team Rocket would want to mess with. He pulled out a pokéball and tossed his hair.

'What are you gonna do about it, twerp?' Jessie snorted.

Her smile faded when Gary's Alakazam appeared. A powerful psychic attack ripped the net away from her and shattered their capture gun. Before Either Jessie or James could recover the net split into tattered pieces and suddenly the trapped bug pokémon all burst free and swooped about.

'Oh no!,' James said, 'all our hard work!'

'Okay Alakazam,' Gary made sure to sound as offhand as possible while his psychic pokémon wreaked havoc, 'let's get rid of these clowns.'

Both the Rockets started to panic, losing their footing. A mauve light surrounded them and lifted them clear off the ground.

'No, wait, I need to get Meowth back!'

Gary couldn't hear me, now that the air was full of the frantic beating of filmy wings and the other bug catchers threw their pokéballs left and right, engaging the freed Yanma in battles to capture them. Alakazam held out his spoons to direct their movement, causing their limbs to fly about when he flicked his spoon slightly. Gary was still glaring coldly, intent on causing the Rockets discomfort, but his Alakazam seemed upbeat and cheerful, enjoying using his psychic powers to manipulate people so easily.

'That's all, Alakazam. Show them a really good blasting off.'

'Alaa… kazam!' his pokémon chanted, holding his spoons out and slanting them. The Rockets, well, rocketed away in the blink of an eye. I watched them rise up into the sky. But as they went up, I realised something else was coming down. Meowth had pulled free during the psychic attack and only went part of the way up. I heard his scream becoming louder as he hurtled back down to earth.

I ran forward, dodging trainers and bugs. Just in time I reached the spot under Meowth and held my arms out, catching him safely on the way down. Meowth groaned in shock, looking shaken, but also thankful.

I went back to Gary, who was returning Alakazam.

'Well, that got them out of our hair,' he shrugged.

'Thanks, Gary,' I had to admit it was him who saved the day. Gary didn't gloat about it, strangely, he just took it in stride as if dramatic rescue were a normal part of his everyday life.

Just then I heard Arnie cheering and looked over.

'Yeah, finally!' he held a pokéball up in the air, 'I caught one!'

'Congrats, Arnie,' I smiled. Several bug catchers now had finally made their prize captures and were over the moon, bragging to their friends about the size of the bug they caught.

Arnie looked at his pokéball gleefully, then at Gary and me, 'what about you guys? Are you gonna catch one now that we found the swarm?'

Gary looked away haughtily. 'No thanks. They may be rare but it's still a bug pokémon. They're always pretty weak.'

I glanced up at the forest grove where a few Yanma still flitted back and forth. A particularly big one came over and hovered above me, and just on the off-chance, I held out my arm. The huge, red dragonfly considered it and landed on my outstretched arm to rest.

'Aww, I think they're cute.'

'You do?' Arnie exclaimed.

Gary as usual was unimpressed. 'You have far too many bug types for a girl, y'know.'

'Don't blame me, it's not my fault if they're cute! How can you say no to that face?' to demonstrate I tickled the Yanma under its chin. It yipped and fluttered happily. Gary looked sickened. 'You're a friendly li'l bug… wanna join my team and take on the world?' The Yanma cocked its head, and when it understood it assumed a fighting pose. It wanted a battle first.

'Battle? No problem,' I grinned, pulling out a pokéball as Yanma took off from my arm. I threw the ball, sending out my Ledyba. 'I might as well fight bug with bug… start out with tackle, Vesper!'

The little red bug zoomed towards the larger one, resulting in an aerial bug battle. They traded blows and tried to flit out of each other's range. Vesper connected a few comet punches while the Yanma disrupted Vesper's flying with sonic booms generated from his wings. Yanma seemed to have more experience to give him the upper hand. Since a brute force attempt would fail I ordered Vesper to use supersonic. The Yanma hovered and performed supersonic too, and both pokémon became confused. It seemed like a stalemate, as they both lost control of their flying patterns. Yanma swooped into a tree branch and fell, dazed. I pulled out a pokéball quickly and threw it while I had the chance. Vesper meanwhile flew in lazy circles until I recalled him.

'Well… that's one way to make a capture,' said Gary as the pokéball stopped moving.

We said goodbye to the bug catchers and made our way back to the main pathway. The ball with my new Yanma had been automatically transported to Professor Elm since it would have been too many for me to legally carry.

'I'm gonna name him Zippy,' I said. I'd been carrying Meowth, and now he started to come around.

'Hi. You feeling okay?'

'I guess..,' he replied, 'that was some ride.'

'Those Team Rocket people … they really seem to want you back on their side.'

'I know… honestly, I miss bein' a team with them too. Those goofballs, heh. But I can't risk goin' back to them. Not now.'

I was insanely curious about what Meowth obviously wasn't letting on, but I stayed quiet and let him recuperate in my arms.


	17. All's Fair In Bugs And War

I don't own any copyrighted characters, ideas, plots or Pokémon used in this fanfiction.

**The Johto League**

**Chapter 17**

**All's Fair In Bugs And War**

**  
**  
I held my map close to my nose and squinted. 'Are you _sure_ it's this way?'

Gary shifted the egg-holder in his arms, took the map from me with an exasperated flourish, and jabbed his finger at the route.

'It's this way. Jeez, girls are so hopeless with maps.'

I glared. 'Then why did we end up _here_?'

We stood on a stretch of stone patio, fenced in, covered with flowers, and a few benches here and there. The sun beamed down merrily on us and the other people; families; couples in the park. It was wondrously idyllic, but hanging around in a park wouldn't get us gym badges.

Gary grunted and traced his finger along the map again.

'See, we're taking this route up to Ecruteak. It goes through the National Park, that's all. It's the right way.'

'Sheesh, you guys,' Meowth moaned, 'quit arguing. You're disturbing my cat-nap,' he shifted from his position curled up on top of my backpack.

We passed by some raucous kids playing ball alongside their pokémon on the way through. Taking a break to enjoy the surroundings looked like fun… but I knew Gary would be all business.

The clear air filled with the gleeful shouts of children was rattled by an announcement. I looked up in search of loudspeakers.

_ 'Ladies and gentlemen, you are reminded that today's bug-catching contest registration will close in just ten minutes! Hurry up if you want to catch bugs in the park for the chance to win great prizes! Come to the gatehouse and register quick!'_

'Catching…?' I repeated.

'…Contest?' Gary caught on.

We hurried back to the gatehouse.

A contest official there took our names for entry and explained the rules. We could only take one pokémon around the park with us. We were each given park balls to capture our entries, and only bug types caught in park balls would be judged. We had one hour to search for the strongest bug type we could find and capture it, and when time ran out all contestants had to proceed to judging.

It seemed simple enough. I took Meowth aside before we went in.

'I'm guessing you'd rather not go out and battle bugs. But you'll be bored sitting around with the pokéballs they're safekeeping.'

'I'll be fine!' Meowth assured, 'Heh, time for this Meowth to do some exploring on my own for once!'

Meowth wandered off quite gladly to enjoy the park. I rejoined Gary and handed the official all but one of my pokéballs as he did.

'I wonder why we only get to use one,' Gary mused.

'I guess so it's more of a challenge. Gotta pick something that can stand up to bugs and has enough endurance for an hour long contest,' I replied as I headed for the gatehouse exit. Gary followed me after making sure the official took proper care of his pokémon egg.

'You better be careful! Keep it upright!' he said over his shoulder as we left.

Now that the contest had officially begun the regular people relaxing on the park grounds were gone. Replacing there were young trainers left and right, running forward into the grasses to frantically search for the best pokémon before they were beaten to it by their competitors.

'We're gonna stick together, right?'

Gary looked back at me, caught off guard.

'Okay… I guess.'

The sheer amount of competition overwhelmed me – I didn't have great luck finding stuff to catch even when there weren't dozens of other kids vying for the top pokémon of the area. But if we didn't start, we wouldn't have a chance. We had to press on.

Gary and I headed for the centre of the park. It was a huge open space, the paved floor intermittent with grasses in which pokémon could hide. A wide water feature, an open pool with low fountains, sprawled out in the centre. Boys and girls (mostly boys) were thronging in the grass, catching whatever was in their eyesight – Weedle and Metapod vanishing in droves so that they would at least have something to show at the judging, but with that safety in place, they moved on to search for the more elusive winners.

'Let's get past these guys. Quickly,' Gary nudged me, 'safeties are for wimps. We're got to go straight for the big prize and away from the crowds.'

Gary grabbed my arm and we hurried on through the park. His competitive side was deep-set and hardly ever manifested, as Gary liked instead to show off while remaining cool and smug, too high above the masses to let them bother him. Here was one of the first times I saw Gary appear concerned – in his determination to do well. Once he was safe in having a good lead on the rest, his superior arrogance would, undoubtedly, resurface.

Together we headed briskly through the grasses hiding the park's pokémon. As we went they grew longer and more unkempt. It didn't take a genius to realise that bigger prizes to catch would require bigger hiding places. But even the wilder, waist-high grass didn't satisfy Gary, and we ran ahead until we found ourselves in the park's forested area.

'That's better. Everyone else will reach this place soon enough, but we have a nice head start,' he grinned. 'Now let's find some bugs!'

He gathered himself and triumphantly threw his only pokéball. I recognised who he'd picked for the contest, his huge, crooked-necked Fearow. It ruffled itself and flapped its wings, brimming with energy.

'Quick, Fearow, I need you to fly up and scout for bug types. Big ones. The biggest you can find.'

I watched as the bird pokémon I'd once flown on took off and scanned the parkland below. Gary followed his pokémon's flight and when it crowed, he ran in the direction it was flying. I could only try to keep up.

As I caught up with Gary he was smirking, directing Fearow to attack a pokémon inside a tree. His massive bird dived at the branches, swooped free, and a different large pokémon fell free. It was a Pinsir, one of the most ferocious-looking bugs I'd ever seen, bigger than me. It thrashed in defence and tried to catch Fearow's neck in its huge, crushing pincers, but to no avail. Fearow attacked relentlessly, using its flight advantage to its fullest, until Pinsir collapsed having been utterly drained of health.

Gary chuckled and threw his park ball. He didn't even celebrate the catch. He picked up his hard-earned reward when it lay still in its ball, aloof and complacent. I guess I had to be fair, making a successful catch was still a novelty for me, but for Gary, accomplishing the same feat hundreds of times had worn off the thrill.

Before I realised it he was walking off again.

'Hey, where you going?'

'To get ready for judging,' came the standoffish reply.

'But… you're not gonna stick around and wait for me?'

'Why? I'm done, I wanna get back first and _still_ be the one who sweeps this contest!' Gary laughed, 'that'll show all those losers!'

Before I could protest more he'd recalled his Fearow and gone. I was on my own.

Being on my own got old fast.

I picked out my one pokéball and called out my contest partner. Spike, my Quilava, squealed with happiness to see me and nuzzled my ankle.

'Good boy, Spike,' I giggled, petting him, 'look, we gotta find some bugs, strong ones, fast. I'm counting on you.'

Spike grinned, nodded, and we searched.

The first thing we found was a Paras. Spike was eager to take it down for me but I called him off, letting the Paras escape up a tree. A weak bug was no good. Growing in me was a burning desire to beat Gary… somehow. No matter where I placed after judging, if I could just beat him for dragging me along and then not even waiting around.

The problem with that was obvious. Gary was experienced. He was… really good. He'd caught a Pinsir and that practically assured him winning this competition. As I kept looking I noticed other challengers swarming into the forest. I found them catching Venonat and Beedrill before I could even make a move.

Maybe I should go ahead and give up, I thought. But then, what kind of attitude was that to show in front of my pokémon? They'd battle for me, even if it did look hopeless. Besides, the only reason the contest appealed to me was the focus on catching another pokémon, since I wanted to feel less like a beginner… Gary's obvious and effortless prowess didn't help that.

We didn't give up. Spike trawled the forest as best he could. I started wishing I hadn't dismissed that Paras earlier. I saw less and less people around, which made me hopeful… then I realised they were going to the gatehouse with their entries. Time was nearly up.

I told Spike to search faster, with less care. Anything decent would do. We moved out of the forest and backtracked to the tall grass field. It seemed like there was no hope for it now.

I sat down. Exhausted. Feeling hopeless. Spike hopped over and laid his head on my knee. For the first time in the park, I felt relaxed. This was more like it, resting with your loyal pokémon. The grass was so tall, it surrounded me and blocked out the view of any other person. All I saw were the grasses swaying in the wind and the sky. And a Scyther.

I bolted upright.

Yes, that was a Scyther. Crouching in the grass, just visible from my position. I nearly tripped getting up in such excitement. I could possibly get back in the game.

'Spike, quick attack!'

Scyther was fast enough to realise when the fiery furball launched itself at him, but not fast enough to dodge. He was struck and attacked back. I checked my watch. The hour was up. The contest would be over _any second._

I ordered Spike to use smokescreen. The air clouded over, and I fumbled, and managed to throw my park ball at the hopefully unsuspecting Scyther somewhere in that obscuring smoke. It couldn't deflect the ball if it couldn't see…

'_Would all trainers please come immediately to the contest judging! Today's bug catching contest is officially over!'_

I was holding my breath without realising, not just because the air was full of smoke. Slowly it dissipated in the breeze. Scyther was gone. And the park ball lay on the ground… occupied.

I just grabbed the ball, scooped Spike up in my arms, and ran for the gatehouse.

We arrived just in time to hand over my entry. At last. I breathed in relief. I waited in the crowd while the entries were considered, everybody glancing at the huge screen overhead that would display the winners. I couldn't see Gary amid the people, but Spike reminded me to let him rest. I hugged and thanked him before he went back into his ball.

After just a few minutes the megaphones crackled to life and the screen declared the judging was complete.

_ 'Ladies and gentlemen! Your bug pokémon have been judged and here are the results you've all been waiting for! Placing third is Jack Robertson, who caught this prime Paras!'_

The overhead screen displayed the third place pokémon, who looked ecstatic. We all clapped. But a Paras? If I'd caught that Paras then… maybe…

_ 'And coming second is Holly Evergreen, who bagged this magnificent Scyther!'_

Wait, that… that was my Scyther on the screen! I was stunned, suddenly coming to the realisation that I'd actually caught it! And won second place – I just blinked.

'You won second?' I heard that familiar accent. Meowth winked at me when I looked down. 'That's good goin', kid.'

I picked him up joyously, grinning with pride.

_ '…final winner, taking first prize is… Beverly Thomas, with her beautiful Butterfree!'_

I joined in the applause for the grand prize winner. I also distinctly heard a voice scream out 'WHAT?!' among the crowd. A voice I recognised very well.

When the small ceremony had run its course Meowth and I made our way inside park's gatehouse, to retrieve the other pokémon and pick up our prize.

'Did you have fun by yourself?' I petted Meowth and tickled him behind the ear, just the way he liked it.

'Kinda. Maybe wasn't… so exciting, but I'm a lone Meowth, y'know.'

'Yeah, I know,' I smirked, playing along.

'Why,' he playfully shot back a teasing smile, 'didja miss me?'

''Course I did,' I ruffled his fur. He groaned, fur in disarray.

I heard Gary's voice again even before entering the gatehouse. He was complaining vehemently to the competition officials, demanding to know the reasoning behind the judging. In a spectacularly tactless yet satisfying move, I laughed at him.

When he saw me there Gary stuck his hands in his pockets and reasoned with the flummoxed official more calmly.

'Well Mr Oak, you really did catch a good specimen, we don't doubt that. It's just…' the park representative held up Gary's park ball and released his Pinsir, which took form lying flat on the ground, unmoving, 'your entry just didn't stand up well next to the others when being judged!'

Gary took back his park ball without a word, recalled his entry, and took his other pokéballs. I walked over to the man in charge of the prizes, partly so Gary wouldn't see Meowth and me still sniggering to each other.

Beverly, the winner, was ahead of me. She received a large, round, spiky orange crystal they called a Sun Stone for first prize. I nodded to her and congratulated her on her way back.

'Oh yes, Miss Evergreen? You won second,' said the official, leaning over with a friendly smile, 'this is yours. Thank you for participating!'

He handed me some kind of pokéball. This one, instead of being red and white, was white all over.

'What is it?' I couldn't help asking.

'That's a premier ball. It's quite rare, only available at special occasions. Use it wisely!'

I thanked him and went to take my regular team back. I reattached my pokéballs to my belt (and took Scyther's, which transported away) while I watched Gary take his egg container from the staff.

'They said the egg was… acting strangely,' Gary explained as we left.

'Err… what kind of strangely?'

'They said that it glowed with this pulsing faint light.'

We were walking out of the park. I bent over and stared closely at the egg behind the glass. It looked its regular colour, yellow with black stripes.

We sauntered on, away from the park. I showed Gary the odd pokéball I won.

'That's it? A white pokéball?'

'It's special though. The guy said it was rare. I wonder if it has unusual catching properties…'

Gary snorted, 'Doubt it. I bet they just took a regular old pokéball and painted it white! Hey… what nickname are you gonna give to that Scyther. I know you always do.'

'I was thinking… Saber.'

'Hm,' Gary sounded flippant, 'it's bad-ass, at least…'

We didn't get much further before a flash of light interrupted us. All three of us stopped in confusion. Another flash, and Gary gasped. His egg glowed brightly inside its case.

Hurriedly we dashed to the side of the path and knelt around as Gary took the plastic case away. The egg seemed to squirm, brighter than ever, almost blinding. It was hard to look at this way but it seemed to be changing. We just waited until we could look again, and saw a little yellow pokémon sitting, quite innocently. Still round, with arms and legs, and two prongs on its head resembling an electric socket…

'Ele-dee-dee,' the baby said.

'That is so cool,' I leaned forward, captivated, 'a newly born Elekid!' I couldn't help it, it was such a cute hatchling, I put out my hand carefully to be the first to touch it. When I did the Elekid recoiled and I got a nasty static shock, making me cry out and pull back.

Gary laughed. 'My new baby pokémon is _awesome_.'


	18. Power Play

I don't own any copyrighted characters, ideas, plots or Pokémon used in this fanfiction.

**The Johto League**

**Chapter 18**

**Power Play **

**  
**  
Gary, Meowth and I carried on uneventfully towards Ecruteak City. For those few days Gary became a bit more competitive, challenging trainers we met more often instead of me. Now that we were nearing another Gym and our adventure had carried us far into Johto he clearly wanted to be prepared.

As we approached a little town to stop off, stock up and heal our teams, getting close to Ecruteak, Gary just had to stop and battle a bratty little trainer with an Alakazam. I stood to one side, rolling my eyes. If there was one thing Gary liked more than just plain out beating someone's strategy, it was beating somebody arrogant and proving that his egocentric, complacent air was completely and utterly justified.

Of course he wanted to battle the kid with the Alakazam. Now that Gary had Umbreon as his main companion a battle against a psychic-type became child's play. The Alakazam had an arsenal of several powerful yet inaccurate moves and Umbreon's speed, plus using agility, was more than enough to keep him from getting a single scratch. Alakazam's trainer grew desperate and ordered a hyper beam as a last-ditch attempt but Gary, who had seen a lot of trainers resort to that move, saw it coming and the harsh beam attack was easily dodged. Umbreon took Alakazam out straight after.

'Wow, dat kid never even had a chance,' Meowth commented.

'Had your fun, Gary?' I said dryly.

Gary smirked as his opponent simply left. A noise distracted us and we all looked up at the cliff ridges that rose around the area. Three trainers stood up on a ledge, they must have been watching Gary's battle.

'Oh great,' I heard Gary mutter, 'how'd he catch up?'

One trainer came down the ledge and greeted Gary. I recognised Ash, the one who also came from Pallet Town and Gary always competed against.

'Gary! I've been training a whole lot and I bet my Pikachu can beat your Umbreon... let's have a battle!'

Ash sure seemed insistent. Gary just shook his head.

'Please, Ash…' he sounded sneering, 'we defeated your Pikachu before when Umbreon was just an Eevee, what makes you think you can do any better now my pokémon's evolved and your hasn't?'

Ash growled, 'Well, let's just battle and find out!'

'Sorry Ash. There's no point. I already know how to battle a Pikachu by now.'

'Well I could beat you with _any_ of my pokémon!' Ash declared, and quickly opened all his pokéballs. He also had a Chikorita, Cyndaquil, and a Totodile. I couldn't help wondering how this kid managed to pick up all the starters from my hometown. He also had a Noctowl, so at least _one_ of his pokémon was an evolved form… but then I noticed the sunlight gleaming off the Noctowl's feathers in such a strangely magnificent way, I realised it wasn't a regular Noctowl. It wasn't brown, at least.

Ash's pokémon didn't look nearly as eager for battle as he was and they just played around, ruining whatever impressive effect this might've had. Gary just sighed, beckoned me to follow him, and walked away. I took one last look back and trotted after.

'Geez, isn't that kid ever going to learn…?' Gary muttered, walking briskly to put some distance between himself and his rival.

'He only wanted a battle, if it would've been so easy to beat him maybe you should've…'

'No, he needs to learn a lot more. A _lot_ more. He's not worth me stopping and doing his bidding all the time,' he snorted.

'Tha twoip still acts twoipy,' Meowth piped up, hanging onto my back and leaning over my shoulder.

'How dumb!' Gary continued. 'No self-respecting trainer should grovel for the chance to battle like that. Especially when it involves showing off all your pokémon. Only fools show off. It means your opponent will know all the options you have. How stupid!'

I couldn't argue with that.

'What about that Noctowl he has?' I said. 'Did it look a weird colour to you?'

'Yeah… I noticed that. Wonder what that was all about,' Gary snorted again, 'he does seem to have some knack for catching _defective_ pokémon.'

He carried on quickly and after clearing another ridge were greeted by the sight of the town we'd been looking for.

It was a small place, nothing very notable so we had no need to explore. We headed directly for their Pokémon Center. A quick healing up later and Gary was directing us outside.

'Where're we going? It's sunset, shouldn't we book some rooms?' I protested.

'Nah… I think we should go back up that cliff and camp out.'

'Instead of using the Pokémon Center beds?!'

Gary's eyes narrowed. 'Ash's group is heading this way. It's best if we don't all end up crashing at the same Center and having to deal with them.'

He seemed pretty set on it.

A little while later and we'd climbed back up the slope at the edge of the town. Then we pitched up a camp right on the edge of an overhang surrounded by trees, with a full raised view of the town below.

'And see, this way… we get a great view.'

He really was right. Camping on the road is what being a trainer was about in the first place. If I wanted to sleep in a comfortable bed each night I could just have stayed back home. Gary and I stood on the cliff edge and watched the sun set slowly behind the distant mountains, the world sank into dusk, and lights began to flick on in the windows of the buildings. It reminded me just what a sense of adventure was for. The town now a sprawling shadow dotted with lights and stars glimmering overhead, Gary and I exchanged a glance. We said nothing, but we smiled. Now that it was fully evening we finished setting up the fire together so we could have some light.

Gary then had to prepare food for our pokémon, knowing they'd be hungry. I sat on the ground with Meowth, who was staring at the sky. He seemed to like watching the moon, and it was full tonight.

Gary released Umbreon, who he clearly thought should be fed first after his triumphant battle earlier. Umbreon shook himself and took in the sights, then gazed at the moon too, and his yellow rings began to glow.

'Dinnertime, Umbreon,' Gary called, and Umbreon padded right over to the bowl Gary set down. Still slightly glowing, Umbreon sniffed the food and stuck his tongue out.

Gary chuckled. 'Yeah, I know, I haven't fixed the recipe for dark type pokémon yet. You gotta put up with this for now, sorry.'

In the blink of an eye it became a lot harder to see. I stared around, confused.

'Gary? What just happened?'

As my eyes adjusted I saw Gary look over the ledge. None of the town's lights were on now.

'What happened to all the lights?' he said. 'Must be a blackout.'

Just after that a coloured blur rushed past our clearing. I looked around to see it just too late, but Gary did.

'Where are those three going?'

'Those three? You mean…'

'C'mon,' Gary motioned to me and set off to follow them. 'Let's find out where Ash is going in such a hurry.'

This didn't really go according to plan. We ran headlong after Ash, after I grabbed Meowth along and Umbreon just ran to keep up. Some way into the forest we lost track of them, only to keep going and discover an enormous industrial building. After walking along it we found it connected to a river, blocked by a dam.

'Is this… the power station?' I pondered, looking at the dam with what seemed like turbines in it.

'It must be, that makes sense… Ash must've been running here because there was a problem with the power, that's why the lights went out.'

We simultaneously noticed a tube stuck in the wall of the facility leading off into the forest.

'What's that?'

Gary considered it. 'Looks like a… huge extension cord…' He headed off following the wire into the forest. He called back to tell me to find out if there was a way to get the dam turbines working since it was obviously a power source. Umbreon ran after him.

'I don't know how these things work!' I moaned. I took Meowth to look at the dam with me. Meowth pointed at the sealed grates.

'I guess water gotta come outta dere, so dose need to be open?'

True enough, but how to open those gates I had no idea. Some more inspection showed up a mechanism on the ground that might lever the dam open manually, but no way to operate it.  
As we pondered this Gary came running back.

'The power source was damaged,' he explained quickly, 'these turbines are the backup and we gotta get them running.'

Meowth and I showed him the mechanism we found. Before we'd finished explaining though, I noticed some other people who must have followed Gary. Ash and his friends. Gary pointed out the missing lever.

'The handle's missing.'

Suddenly I heard a Totodile voice calling for attention. It must have been Ash's that we saw before, because Ash followed his pokémon's yelling to a small work shed. He must have trusted his Totodile's instinct because he asked his Cyndaquil to tackle the door down. I saw him disappear inside. Umbreon followed him and a familiar yellow glow lit up inside the dark shack.

Pretty soon Ash came back out triumphantly brandishing a big red metal lever. It slotted perfectly into the mechanism, but when he pushed it, nothing happened. His two friends, the older boy and the girl with red hair, also grabbed the handle and tried to turn it. And then all of Ash's pokémon lined up to grab the handle themselves and add their weight. Even all working together, it didn't budge.

Gary came forward and grabbed the other end of the handle, grunting as he tried to force it to turn. Umbreon jumped in, and I grabbed on too. Even Meowth pitched in. A few seconds of effort later and we felt the bar grind into a turn. Finally all our combined strength opened the water gate, the dam opened, and water poured through.

We returned triumphantly but quickly to the power plant, where apparently the backup generator was so outdated it couldn't properly use the hydroelectric dam. Ash volunteered his Pikachu to start up the generator with electricity and that jumpstart got the plant working at a good capacity. The engineers running the facility thanked us all.

We went our separate ways, Ash's group back to town, and we went back to our campsite. I waved at Gary's rival and his friends briefly, but then, before we all parted, Gary left a few parting words with Ash.

'Next time we meet don't be surprised if I'm the one who challenges you to a match.'

As we walked away I questioned why Meowth had been so quiet and nearly hiding.

'Da twoips think I'm just some Meowth you caught… and if they figured out who I really am, I bet they'd be after me, too.' I petted him to calm him down.

'I thought you said you had nothing else to learn from fighting Ash,' I said.

'I saw a few things tonight that made me reconsider. Ash has a peculiar way of making his pokémon find really obscure ways of fixing problems,' he shrugged, 'he's still learning and seems to come up with stupid ideas that actually work. It's unpredictable. And I'll always need more training against _that_.'

I saw that Gary had earned more respect for his rival, although he disguised it, and we returned to our campsite for the rest of the night.


	19. Master Plan

I don't own any copyrighted characters, ideas, plots or Pokmon used in this fanfiction.

**The Johto League**

**Chapter 19**

**Master Plan **

**  
**  
'Gary? Are you ready to go?' I stuck my head around the door and peeked into our Pokécenter room. 'Let's get going, I think we could reach Ecruteak today!'

Meowth came up behind me and leapt from the ground, climbed my back, and found his place on my shoulder where he could also peer into the room.

'Don't keep us waitin', kid. I wanna get goin' too. Ecruteak's a legendary city even among pokémon.'

'Yeah, yeah, I'm coming!' Gary assured us. He sat on his bed, packing supplies back into his shoulder bag. I briefly caught sight of an odd pokéball among Gary's belongings; it looked like… only a half of the ball. It also appeared to be old and worn. I couldn't help wondering why Gary would carry around something clearly useless like that, but I didn't ask. Gary swept the trinket into his satchel and got up to leave.

The road leading to Ecruteak had slowly grown more mountainous, with tall fir trees becoming more common, and above them, enormous peaks in the distance. The mountains grew larger every day as we covered ground. I couldn't wait for Ecruteak; I'd heard the city was immersed in deep mysteries about pokémon, and by now it seemed like forever since I'd challenged a Gym.

'Dey say that in Ecruteak City dere used to be two pokémon towers,' Meowth was telling us as we walked. 'And two giant boid pokémon with great powers would roost on dem. It was a blessing on the human towers, which were built to honour pokémon.'

I started looking across the tops of the trees for these towers. 'D'you think we might see those bird pokémon?'

'Nah, see, long ago one tower burned down. Three mystical pokémon were inside it and died in dat fire. But the boid who lived there, it used its powers to bring dem back to life, and now dose three pokémon stay there, guarding the tower. Both of the boid-gods flew off and never came back.'

'Wow, it's amazing that pokémon pass on the legends just like we do.'

'Yeah, lotsa pokémon know dat story.'

'Hmph,' Gary tossed his head, 'I'm only interested if we can catch any of those. Besides, most legends are just stories people make up. A pokémon that can bring others back to life? Unlikely. But if it could, imagine what we could do it we captured it.'

'…I dunno, Gary,' I took a warning tone of voice, 'the world's most powerful pokémon must have duties way beyond being caught and trained. I think the world needs them left alone. …Gary you're not listening.'

He wasn't. Gary jogged ahead and took a look beyond the next set of trees. He quickly motioned for us to be quiet and went on ahead.

'What's dat about,' Meowth said.

'Oh jeez, he must've found something to catch again.'

When we caught up with Gary he had cornered some kind of pokémon. It looked like a brown deer, as tall as Gary himself. Gary threw a ball at it, waited, and claimed his capture.

'Gary- how- what was that!' I said, running up to him.

'A Stantler,' he replied, then added with a grin, 'they're kinda rare.'

'But you didn't even use anything to weaken it!'

'Stantler can use hypnotic powers to sedate pokémon. And humans. But I was better off just trying to catch it. See, when you get better, you'll learn these things.' He walked away, looking at his Stantler's pokéball, smugly.

Meowth scowled. 'He should respect his pokémon more. He'd be nothin' without 'em.'

'What kind of respect? I think Gary really likes his pokémon, he just doesn't like to show it,' I chatted back as we followed Gary, at a distance, back to the path.

'Pokémon like testing demselves against humans,' Meowth explained, 'they're happy being in the wild and all, and if a trainer wants to catch them, they battle. If the trainer proves they're stronger than that pokémon, it's fair and square and the pokémon knows the trainer has more experience to make dem a better fighter. Dat's usually how it woiks.'

Just then I stopped in my tracks. Above us was some kind of purple pokémon, hanging from a tree branch. It was upside-down, suspended by its long tail, which had a weird looking hand on the end of it. Then it waved to us.

'What the-'

'Hey, that's an Aipom,' Meowth said.

'Ah-ha! Hi there Aipom… I'm gonna show Gary how to catch pokémon honourably.'

I reached for a pokéball and the Aipom giggled. It dropped to the ground and ran straight off into the trees before I could react.

'Hey, come back!' I immediately ran after it.

Meowth clung tighter to my shoulder, 'Wah! Slow down!'

'Where are you going?!' I faintly heard Gary call after. But I wanted to catch this pokémon and I pursued it right into the forest, running full out over the crackling undergrowth and keeping my eyes on the flashes of purple in the branches overhead.

'Come back here, I'll catch you, Aipom!'

We heard a sudden ripping crash and the forest floor seemed to explode.

Whatever it was, I tried to shield Meowth from it, and closed my eyes. Dirt flew everywhere. Finally when things had settled I looked up. The Aipom had somehow triggered a spring-loaded net and was now caught in it, struggling and helpless.

'What's going on?!' I demanded of nobody in particular.

Gary caught up to me and stared in confusion. 'What happened?!'

In answer some sinister laughter emanated from the trees. I couldn't tell what direction it came from. Two people stepped out, wearing black uniforms with what I recognised as the red Team Rocket logo on them.

'Hey, who are you people?!' I yelled. They definitely weren't the two Team Rocket members we were used to seeing, instead of Jessie I saw a woman with long orange hair, and in place of James, a man with short green hair. 'I was trying to catch that Aipom, why are you stealing it?'  
The Rockets laughed again.

'Listen, dearie,' said the woman of the duo, 'this trap wasn't for the scrawny pokémon. It was meant for you and you missed it.'

'Yeah, that's right,' added her companion, 'but since we scored a pokémon as well, we'll gladly present it to the Boss.'

The two of them struck up a pose.

'Prepare for trouble!'

'And make it double!'

'To infect the world with devastation!'

'To blight all—'

'Hey, stop that!' I growled at them, 'We've heard the motto before, okay?'

Both Rockets stamped incredulously, 'But ours is different!'

The uniformed man grabbed up the net Aipom was in and shot us a haughty glance. 'I think they all should be taught a lesson, right Cassidy?'

'I think you're right, Butch,' Cassidy held up a pokéball, 'let's get what we came for.'

Meowth was clinging tightly to my neck at this point. I fumbled for a pokéball of my own while Gary ordered, 'What _are_ you thieves here for?!'

'Let's get those twerps, Raticate!' Cassidy threw out her ball and her giant rat pokémon bounded out, looking straight at us with squinting, beady eyes.

It gnashed its huge fangs. 'Raticate!'

I just froze. I felt Meowth flinch. Something wasn't right about that Raticate.

Gary was the only one unfazed, he threw a pokéball of his own and regarded the Raticate with derision.

'That's all you guys have? I expected something more capable,' Gary scorned, as Umbreon was released. 'Tackle it.'

Umbreon jumped forward, as self-assured of the hit as his master was, but the Raticate could somehow jump out of the way. It didn't look at all concerned about being battled. I finally got hold of a ball, distracted by how Meowth was shaking, and let out whatever was inside. It turned out to be my Sandshrew.

'Needles… see if you can help take that Raticate down!'

The little yellow mouse joined the fray, sending a poison sting at Raticate, and Umbreon prepared a skull bash.

'Dodge those pipsqueaks, Raticate, and get us our prize!' Cassidy crowed.

Raticate made no indecisive movements, not even a foot out of place as it dodged the attacks from our pokémon. It wasn't thinking, just reacting. Something about it scared me.

However it wasn't nearly as frightening as when that Raticate turned and leapt at me.

I stumbled back, leaving the giant rat to catch only air in its teeth. There was no time to look backwards so I tripped and stumbled.

_ This isn't right_, is all I could think as I lay on the dirty forest floor. _All pokémon know never to attack humans…even if they're told to…_

Whatever I thought was normal apparently didn't apply any more. Meowth cowered, curled up tight, right next to me as I lay there. I tried to get upright and fell back, wincing. I'd hurt my arm when I fell.

'Raticate! Raticate!' the Rocket's pokémon prepared to attack again. Although its cry sounded like any other Raticate's it was somehow entirely different. I felt sickened when I realised what the difference was. When any other pokémon says its name it speaks a meaning, a meaning I can usually understand. This Raticate wasn't saying anything with meaning, just making noise. Like it had no thoughts. Nothing to express. Its eyes were cold. Just a soulless attacking machine.

Needles ran in-between the Raticate and me, trying to be protective. The little guy tried sand attacks, then defense curl when the Raticate fought back, but he timed one too late and I saw Raticate's teeth slash across Needles' belly.

I gasped, worried, as the little brave Sandshrew went down, then Raticate turned his attention back on me. It galloped forward and jumped, teeth bared, and I practically screamed-

Raticate was taken by surprise as it crashed right into an invisible wall. The head-on collision almost fractured its fangs, but it didn't appear to notice pain. I looked around, confused for a moment until I saw Umbreon. His eyes glowed. He'd protected me with a reflect attack.

'Hurry up you dumb rat!' Cassidy yelled, 'Bring their stupid mangy cat to us!'

I forced myself to stand, knowing I'd only be in danger as long as I stood between them and Meowth. I was never so badly shaken in my life. Any time before this if I was in danger of a wild pokémon attack I could talk to it and reason my way out. It'd done it in the past. This Raticate was beyond communication. It would hear only its trainer's orders. I'd never felt so helpless, so all I could do was protect Meowth as long as possible.

I stood in front of where Meowth was cowering and faced the Raticate, which was slowly recovering from hitting its head. It blinked its black, empty eyes, refocused, and saw me. Then it advanced slowly, hissing.

What else could I do? Endanger another of my pokémon to battle it? Needles was still lying there, knocked out, and he hadn't stood a chance.

Raticate charged forward and leapt at me, crashing into my stomach and knocking me down, avoiding an assault from Umbreon in the process. I watched it look from me over to Meowth, growling as it approached its target.

Meowth wasn't cowering any more. He got to his feet, with his eyes closed. He took a powerful stance and then opened his eyes, which were blazing white, so bright his pupils had disappeared.

I let out a surprised whimper and scrambled back out of the way. Meowth pointed his paws at Raticate. He cried out as an incredibly powerful blast was released from his body, an enormous beam of light that shot forward at amazing speed. Raticate was caught in it, thrown backwards and collided with both Rocket members, and all three continued to be hurled. The beam curved upwards into the sky, carrying the Team Rocket with it.

Meowth's body went limp, he blinked and his pupils returned, then he fell forward, unconscious.

'Meowth!' I shakily got up and staggered over to him. The poor cat's energy had been completely drained. I picked him up and carried him as I went to check on Needles.

Gary was already inspecting him. 'I think your Sandshrew's fine. He got a bad injury. But the Pokémon Center should be able to heal it, no problem.'

'Okay, thanks Gary,' I nodded, and returned Needles to his ball to keep him safe. 'Thanks for trying, Needles… and Umbreon, thank you for saving me.'

Umbreon met my gaze and gave a curt nod of acknowledgement. Aipom was still stuck in the Rockets' net, trembling. I pulled the net down so the little guy could escape into the wood.

The mood was solemn as we continued on. I hoped the road would end any second so we could reach Ecruteak and get our brave pokémon rested.

'Gary, you should know something…'

'Yeah? What is it?'

I swallowed, 'You didn't notice back there, but the pokémon and I did: that wasn't a normal Raticate.'

'I did notice something…' Gary said, his voice serious and understanding, 'at least, no normal Raticate would have fought like that one did. I've never seen anything like it.'

'There was something really wrong with it. It's hard to really say, it's just like, seeing a pokémon with no mind… no personality, or anything. It was hardly a pokémon at all. Trained out of thinking for itself? I'm not sure…'

'Whatever it was… I can tell it wasn't natural,' Gary grimaced, appreciating the twisted nature of what we'd just seen. 'And we don't know why they'd use something like that to get hold of… him.' He glanced at Meowth in my arms, who was starting to wake up.

Meowth blearily opened his eyes. '…Did we win?'

'Yes, we did. Thanks to you, your hidden power attack saved us,' I tried to smile. 'We're getting to the next Pokémon Centre as fast as we can.'

Meowth relaxed a little. 'I'm sorry you guys. …You're only in danger 'cause of me.'

'Hey, don't worry. We're a team and we look out for each other. We'll protect you,' I reassured. '…Right?' Gary saw me look at him and he nodded.

'Rocket pokémon will be no match for me, anyhow. Not now I know what to expect. But what I don't get is why they're after you.'

Meowth sighed. 'You're not supposed to be able to leave Team Rocket. Not usually. Sure, back in the day our team was so incompetent, the Boss would've kicked us out if it wasn't for the rule. Nobody leaves.'

I tried to sound sympathetic. 'Why did you even join them?'

'I was young, and I grew up in the city. Big dreams of money, fame, all dat jazz. I lived a life of crime just to stay alive, doin' it for a living didn't bother me. Even though we failed so much, with Jessie and James, it was kinda fun. We all looked out for each other. But see, Jessie and James used their own pokémon they caught. Like decent trainers. And dey loved their pokémon. They didn't know what real Rocket pokémon are.'

I didn't want to push him, but my curiosity was uncontrollable. 'And what are they?'

'Team Rocket steals pokémon and either sells them or specially 'trains' them to be used by recruits. They're developing ways to erase a pokémon's mind. Break 'em down to nothing more than living… weapons.'

'That's why you left…' I murmured. 'You were the only one who could tell… what they were doing.'

'Dat's why dey are hunting me down,' Meowth sighed, 'because I know. And if dey catch me dey'll break me too.'

I held him a little tighter and we hurried on, feeling relieved a few minutes later when Ecruteak came into view.


	20. A Burned Desire

I don't own any copyrighted characters, ideas, plots or Pokmon used in this fanfiction.

**The Johto League**

**Chapter 20**

**A Burned Desire**

**  
**  
The next day in Ecruteak was bright and sunny and we strange revelations that had come the day before were nearly forgotten about. Ecruteak was a rustic, homely city; natural, with ornate buildings. Nothing that looked modern and no tall city skyscrapers like in Goldenrod – unless you counted the enormous, stately tower rising above the forest to the west. Just like Meowth said only one tower was still standing, the other was in ruins and I'd glimpsed it across town on the way to the Pokémon Center.

Gary and I organised our belongings for the day, bought fresh supplies, and then found ourselves disagreeing over where we should look first.

'You don't want to go to the Gym?'

'Sure I do, but there's other things we can see her. I want to check out those towers from the legend.'

'Huh,' Gary sneered, 'I thought you came for a Gym match.'

'If you want to get to the Gym so badly, go ahead, I won't stop you. I'll catch up with you later…'

'Okay, fine,' he just shrugged. I walked away, not knowing why he had to act so competitive. The world wasn't going to end if we did some exploring too.

'You wanna come along to the towers, right Meowth?' I addressed the pokémon on my shoulder.

'Sure, why not, I hoid about them so much I wanna find out about them. I just hope curiosity doesn't kill this cat, heh.'

The tower still standing was easy to see, being so tall, but finding the way to it wasn't. One of the buildings in town had a passageway leading over to the tower, and it was there I discovered that it wasn't open to visit. So we left, rather put out, and then went to look for the tower that had burned.

'That's it over there. It looks pretty devastated though,' I said as we approached. 'D'you think they let people inside this one?'

Meowth glanced around. 'Well, nobody's guarding it.. so dat's a yes enough for me!'

The two of us quickly scampered inside. The tower's interior was dingy, everything blackened by the fire that tore it apart, but it wasn't too dark as light sprayed down through the cracked ceiling. This seemed to be the only one of the great tower's floors that remained.

'I wonder how far in we can go…' I mumbled, starting to gingerly step forward over the debris. 'Wanna keep looking?'

Meowth darted ahead, his little lithe body suited to jumping around the strewn material. His eyesight was impeccable too, so I carefully picked my way through, following the cat.

'This place is bigger than I thought… hey! Did you see that?'

'What was it?' Meowth stopped.

'I saw something smoky…'

Suddenly Meowth gave a cry and pointed behind me. I turned to see something purple and floating, with a grinning face, hovering around my shoulder. I jumped but as soon as I blinked, it disappeared.

'A… a Gastly? I guess there's pokémon in here too…'

'_Ghost_ pokémon…' Meowth stammered, 'I hope there aren't real ghosts, like those pokémon that died in the fire…'

We attempted to find out way again until I noticed a flash of orange behind a pile of rubble. Before I could voice my discovery something jumped out and dashed away.

'Hey, that was a Vulpix!' I stepped quickly ahead of Meowth, trying to follow the runaway. 'Oh I would love having a Vulpix, c'mon!'

'Hey, don't run off-!'

I chased the Vulpix's six tails, bouncing as it escaped, but was in too much of a hurry to see the damaged floor. I stepped down too close to a crack in the woodwork and it all gave way. I tripped, fell, and kept on falling. Quite a way down I made a crash landing, but I couldn't see a thing.

I coughed slightly and felt a few bruises on my legs. The ancient dust thrown up from the disturbance began clearing and I could see light up above.

'Are you okay?!' I heard Meowth's voice.

'Yes! I think I can still walk,' I yelled back and coughed amid the dust as I shakily got to my feet.

'Oh no, what do we do?!' I couldn't even see Meowth above me, just a vague small hole. I realised with a sinking sensation I'd fallen a long way.

'You'll have to go get Gary from the Gym. And tell him to bring rope. Or something. That's all I can think of.'

'Okay then,' I heard his voice one last time, then nothing. I rechecked myself, relieved to not find anything broken. I couldn't do anything but wait here in the dark.

With time my eyes adjusted to the blackness and I was able to see where my backpack landed. I pulled it over and rifled through it, and luckily nothing had been damaged. I also got out my torch and turned it on.

Light flooded the hole and I squinted, but immediately realised this area was bigger than I thought. More like a cave. It looked like a long-standing natural formation. I swung the beam of light from the torch and found an opening in the wall – a passageway.

I stepped carefully over to it, making sure to cast light downwards and step over bits of wreckage.

'_Somebody help… please! Help me…_'

I stopped in my tracks. A far-off cry had floated to me. It took a few seconds to sink in that it wasn't words I'd heard, it was a howl.

'_I c-can't move… help…_'

The voice, or whine, was getting weaker. A pokémon's voice, without real form or words but carrying a meaning I understood. It was a heart-wrenching, broken, child-like cry.

I started off into the small passage as quickly as I dared. The darkness was so complete that I could only see a few feet with the torch, and wouldn't have found my way if it hadn't been a single path. I clambered over rocks and ran my hand along the grimy, soot-cloaked wall to steady myself.

I started losing track of how long it took, when all of a sudden the wall ended. I looked about the room, just barely seeing the edges. Some kind of large cavern, and then, a raised plateau formed out of rock. I climbed up, noticing a soft noise like laboured breathing from ahead.

A tiny bundle of fur lay shivering there on the ground. Only half Meowth's size, if that. I crouched down at its side, seeing that it was too weak to move. The face of a frightened puppy looked back and I held out my hand, letting it sniff me.

'_Please help…_' he choked out.

'How long have you been here?' I whispered, gently putting a hand on him. For a Growlithe he didn't feel particularly warm. His colours were off too; pale and sickly.

'_D-don't know…_' the little guy closed his eyes. He was too weak to stay conscious and couldn't move on his own. He looked worn and beaten, obviously from losing a fight. Tufts of creamy fur were missing. I couldn't help being completely terrified – this little Growlithe hardly looked capable of surviving and the only way back was so treacherous I didn't think I could do it.

But the only option was to try anyway. I grabbed a pokéball from my belt.

'Spike,' I addressed my Quilava once he was released, 'I need you to help me here and light up then way, so I can get out.'

'Quil,' he agreed, firing up his flaming collar which emanated a glow good enough to see by. I was forced to pack away the torch so I could carry the Growlithe carefully. I didn't dare try catching him. The ball would auto-transport away from me if I did, and it didn't seem very fair to save a pokémon but take advantage of it already being weak. The poor guy needed some dignity.

Instead I slowly moved his little body into my arms and followed Spike to the exit. Spike appeared to be worried too, and glanced back occasionally to make sure I was following. His flames lit up the passage I'd come through earlier and we all hurried back to the hole I'd fallen through.

'Gary, are you there?!'

After a pause I heard a very familiar voice respond. 'Where were you?!'

'No time, you've just got to help pull me out. I'm carrying a pokémon so I can't climb.'

Gary sent down a rope. I returned Spike gratefully, although we were left in total darkness again, and grabbed the rope while clutching the invalid pokémon to my chest. On the way up I felt his slow, but steady heartbeat.

With immense relief I finally clambered out of the hole and just knelt on the floor, exhausted.

'You look a total mess…' Gary commented helpfully. 'Wait… what you got there?'

Meowth took one look and saw the problem. 'Oh no, dat guy's hurt real bad…'

As soon as I had my breath back I just ran. The others followed. As quickly as we could we made for the bright entranceway to the tower.

After a nerve-wracking dash across town we'd made it to the Pokémon Center. Nurse Joy took charge immediately when she saw the state the Growlithe was in. He was carried away and inspected by Nurse Joy and her Chansey.

The three of us had nothing else to do but wait. I was nervous and said nothing, but I knew we'd done everything we could.

'Some kind of trouble you find, doing these things,' Gary moaned. 'Good thing I'd nearly finished my battle with Morty when your Meowth showed up.'

'It was nice of you to stay dere and finish the battle foist even in an emergency,' Meowth crossed his arms snarkily.

Eventually Nurse Joy returned to us. I jumped up.

'Well, we think he's stabilised now,' Joy beamed. 'He was in a rough spot but he seems to be recovering. Any longer out there and I'm not sure we could have helped…'

I breathed deeply, 'So you think he'll be okay?'

'I think so, yes. We'll keep him overnight in intensive care but he'll probably be awake again tomorrow,' she smiled back, encouragingly.

Meowth cheered. Even Gary seemed pleased.

'I can't tell what could have happened though…' Nurse Joy sounded concerned. 'You just found the pokémon in that condition?'

'Yeah. It was in the burned down tower…' I nodded slightly and bit my lip. 'But he wasn't hurt by something falling on him. He was out in the open.'

'So strange… but at least I'm sure he'll make a full recovery in time.'

I thanked Nurse Joy, knowing she was right. How such a young pokémon could have found its way underground, below the tower, and sustain such injuries was a mystery. But I was comforted knowing that he would be better soon, and as soon as possible I'd ask the Growlithe what happened to him in that cave.


	21. Scare Tactics

I don't own any copyrighted characters, ideas, plots or Pokmon used in this fanfiction.

**The Johto League**

**Chapter 21**

**Scare Tactics **

**  
**  
I checked on Growlithe the very first thing the next morning. He was still unconscious, hooked up to an intensive care unit. He was so small, young and helpless, I couldn't believe somebody hurt him, but then again there were always people like Team Rocket lowering your faith in humanity.

'He's recovering well, I assure you,' said a cheerful voice. I looked around, brought out of a reverie, to see Nurse Joy. 'He should be back up and ready to go in just a few hours. He can go straight back home to the wild, though I think he'd do well to have a kind trainer like you.'

I nodded slightly. 'Thank you… but to me he doesn't look much better. What's wrong with his fur…' I peered over the little hospital case, indicating the pokémon's colouring. I knew Growlithe usually had fiery orange fur, but this one's was much paler and looked unhealthy.

'I noticed that too, it's odd, but I can't see that it means anything wrong. He's healing just fine. Now you should get back to pokémon training, your friend is waiting for you,' the nurse smiled.

Sure enough, Gary and Meowth waited for me in the lobby.

'Not gonna wimp out of the gym challenge over this, are ya?' Gary said.

'No way. I'll be fine,' I replied, leading the way out of the Pokémon Center. 'Though if you wanted to give me some tips for the match that'd be fine…'

'Hm…' Gary chuckled, 'try to stay focused, don't let anything distract you. And don't get put off because you're scared!'

'Scared?' I glowered at him. 'Why would I get scared.'

I wasn't so sure of myself when we found the Gym. The building was huge and imposing, and when we opened the door it was pitch dark inside.

'After you,' Gary smirked. I stepped right in.

'What kind of Gym is dis?' Meowth questioned, 'You gotta fight it out in the dark?'

Behind us the door slammed shut. A disembodied laugh spread through the darkness.

'Uh… hello?' I tried.

'Welcome to the Ecruteak City Gym,' the voice said, and the room brightened a little. Lamps around the walls lit up dimly with a white-blue flame. All the way on the other side of the room stood a blond man wearing a simple light blue cloak with a headband. 'I am Morty, and I accept your challenge.'

Meowth gazed around at the effects and took steps towards Morty, until he slipped and nearly fell. 'Bah! Dere's no floor here!'

'What? No floor at all? How are we supposed to fight?' It was clear why Morty was already across the room and hadn't moved. It was hard to tell in the dark but a pit stretched across the middle of the building.

'That is my challenge,' said Morty, 'now try your skills against me, unless you're afraid of the dark.'

I stepped up close to the edge of the pit, wondering frantically how to fight a gym leader without using the ground. 'I'm ready.'

'Very well. Three pokémon each. I'll select first,' he produced a pokéball and threw it, releasing what seemed to be a floating ball of smoke. It turned around and I realised it had a face.

'Another Gastly,' I groaned, remembering them from the Burned Tower. 'All right, I choose you!'

I called out my Ledyba, thinking that he had the best chance since he was my only pokémon  
able to fly. He hovered and looked around, seeing the pit, and recoiled.

'Don't worry, Vesper, you'll be fine, just stay in the air,' I encouraged.

'Gastly, give them a taste of your power,' Morty murmured. The Gastly seemed to disappear from the air, then reformed right next to Vesper and licked him with its big tongue. Vesper was shocked, and not a little creeped out.

'Don't let that get to you, use your comet punch!'

The little Ledyba valiantly tried his signature six-leg punch, but every blow passed through Gastly light smoke. That clearly wouldn't work.

Gastly tried to lick again and Vesper flew off, resulting in Gastly chasing him in circles in their air, tongue hanging out. Vesper squealed. He made sudden movements in the air to avoid being hit. Gastly glowed bright purple and an aura attacked Vesper, it looked like a night shade attack. Vesper panicked and tried to zoom out of the way, swooped downwards, and crashed into something.

'Huh?' I blinked,' 'What did he just crash into?'

Vesper picked himself up, looking like a poor squished bug. He'd hit something on the floor, and stood on it.

'There is a floor! It's invisible!'

Morty smiled. 'But I have more tricks up my sleeve. Use curse, Gastly.'

Gastly closed its eyes and dissolved into dark spirits which sank into Vesper. He looked tormented. But Gastly was nothing more than a limp patch of smoke, with no more energy. Morty returned it to its ball.

Vesper looked up, ready to face the next one. The second opponent was a Misdreavus.

'Misdreavus, use psybeam!'

Vesper buzzed his wings to avoid it, but the rainbow-aura beam caught him on impact.

'Er, try using supersonic!'

Vesper buzzed up a high-frequency noise, and Misdreavus shot back a dark confuse ray. They both stumbled in the air. Vesper fell, and the dark spirits he was cursed with drew the last energy from his body. I returned him.

'Okay, different strategy. Give it your best, Marina!'

Lapras' large body took form. She looked down at the bottomless pit ahead of her.

'Don't worry too much, Marina, we just can't see where the floor is,' it probably didn't sound quite as hopeful as I'd intended. Marina was hardly a fast mover without being able to swim either way. She was one of my strongest pokémon, and maybe she could overcome the match with power despite not having evasion on her side.

Misdreavus was free to fly about and dodge attacks, giving Morty the edge. Misdreavus shot a psybeam and we returned a water pulse. I told Marina to use mist. The arena clouded over the vapour, and Misdreavus found it hard to tell which way to escape.

'Now hit it with ice shard!'

Marina opened her mouth and blew jagged shards of ice. Misdreavus didn't see it in the fog until it was too late.

'Misdreavus – fade out!' Morty called, and the iced ghost pokémon seemed to disappear.

'Oh no… where is it…' I scanned the arena, but our opponent was nowhere to be seen in the fog. 'Marina… use ice shard again, everywhere!'

My Lapras readied herself and shot waves of ice shards in all directions. Something odd happened when they hit the invisible floor. The ice formed a coating around what we couldn't see, making it visible. The patches of ice seemed to connect up into a bridge. The way over the pit was revealed.

There was a cry as the hiding Misdreavus was caught in one of the ice blasts. She hovered lower and finally collapsed.

'Not bad!' Morty said, 'I haven't seen a trainer do this before. My final pokémon…'

He threw his last ball of the match – it was a fearsome Gengar. The most powerful ghost pokémon I knew.

'Night shade attack!'

Gengar formed a purple aura around Marina and she cried out in pain. I told her to use confuse ray, but Gengar was too fast and escaped, leaving the ray to get lost on the fog. Gengar appeared right by Marina.

'Use water pulse, quick!'

'Shadow punch!'

Gengar was struck by the water blast, shook it off, and struck out with a powerful punch that left ghostly purple streams in the air behind it. Marina was hit badly and seemed too tired to go on. I called her back.

'That's two down!' said Morty, 'Who's going to be your last chance?'

I thought for a few seconds.

'I choose… Meowth, get over here!'

Meowth, standing at the side of the arena with Gary, did a double take. 'What? Me?!'

'Yes, you! I want you to battle for me.'

The little cat pokémon, who'd been my companion since the day I became a trainer, walked over. He eyed the floating Gengar warily.

'But I can't really battle… not well enough for a gym match…'

'Hey, that's not up to you. I decide who I want to battle for me. And that's you, as long as you'll give it a shot. '

'I don't get it,' Meowth glanced at his claws, then flexed them, 'but I'll give this a shot.'

'It'll be fine, just trust me, got it?'

Meowth hopped out into the arena. Morty laughed.

'Your little cat may be clever enough to speak, but that has nothing to do with battling. Your pokémon say more about your strength as a trainer than you can, literally in this case,' the gym leader smirked. 'Talking's a nice trick, but nothing compared to this! Shadow punch, go!'

Gengar powered up with a mischievous grin, vanished from sight, and materialised immediately in front of Meowth, ready to swing. Meowth whined in fear and stayed rooted to the stop. I didn't even order him to move.

Gengar's ethereal punch went right through Meowth's body.

'Huh?' Meowth has closed his eyes, but slowly opened them. 'I didn't feel anything!'

'What?!' Morty blinked and scowled. 'Shadow punch again, Gengar, hit him!'

Gengar's grin had long gone. It swung its fists again and again, trying to barrage him with punches, and none of them even connected.

'See, Morty, being a ghost can be a disadvantage, too,' I said. Gengar tried another night shade attack and through it all, Meowth stood there, bewildered and untouched. 'Meowth, carefully walk over the invisible floor!'

Meowth tried to ignore Gengar's ineffective attacks and stepped onto the invisible bridge over the endless pit, using the patches of ice as a guideline.

'Use lick, Gengar, do it!'

I saw Gengar disappear and knew he was attempting a surprise attack. The mist still hung low in the building, giving a haunting, if unnatural, effect. I waited until the last second.

'Meowth, skate over the bridge!'

Reacting instinctively rather than questioning it, Meowth leapt away and slid across the bridge of ice. Gengar suddenly appeared from the mist but hadn't been able to see, and missed Meowth entirely. Gengar slammed into the icy floor instead, full speed and tongue first.

Meowth wavered and tried to keep his balance, but Gengar was literally out cold.

'Yay!' Meowth's face lit up when he realised he'd actually won the gym match. He bounded quickly back to solid ground. 'Dat was scary! My paws are so cold…'

'Don't worry, Meowth, we'll get you warmed up. You deserve a big celebration!' I picked him up and cheered.

A Gastly appeared floating near me. I just looked at it, confused. Morty hadn't moved from his cut-off portion of the arena, but he'd returned Gengar.

'Accept your prize,' Morty modded to me, 'you have earned yourself our Gym's Fog Badge.'  
The Gastly stuck out its long tongue, and on it was the shiny metal badge. I couldn't help but laugh and took it, than thanked the Gastly and Morty himself.

We didn't stay to celebrate very long. The three of us hurried on back to the Pokémon Center. To my great relief Nurse Joy had good news.

'He's woken up now, and I was able to remove most of the bandages.'

'Can I see him?'

Nurse Joy led the way into the special care room. Instead of being a tiny bundle, Growlithe was curled up comfortably on the bed, with only a couple of hospital bandages left, on his head and one on his paw. Although he seemed healed, his fur was still a strange yellow colour. He looked up as I came over, bright-eyed.

'_You saved me_!' he barked.

Nurse Joy laughed, having heard only a puppy-like yapping. 'He's so energetic now.'

'We're all glad you're okay,' I beamed, petting the Growlithe's fuzzy head.

Meowth hid behind my legs and peeked out.

'Don't be scared of him, Meowth, he's only a puppy.'

The Nurse left us with the patient, which meant Meowth could speak. He came forward.  
'You're right… he's just a little tyke. And I can't be scared of that – hey, I beat a Gym Leader!' Meowth hopped up on the hospital bed. 'So kid, how'd you get into trouble?'

Growlithe replied directly. 'Grooww, growlthh.'

Whatever he'd said didn't match words in the human language, so I had no idea what he was talking about. 'Meowth? What'd he say?'

'You remember we were talkin' about the legend of dose pokémon of the Burned Tower? That's the pokémon word for dem.'

'_Yes, the Burned Tower_,' Growlithe continued, '_I heard the tales about the Grand Dogs of Legend. They said they were resurrected in that tower, and became all powerful. I searched the tower for those pokémon and… I found them. I wanted so much to be a Beast of Legend, like they were. But when I stumbled into their secret cave, they were enraged and attacked me. I knew even if I died I wouldn't come back as a Legend. I would have just perished. If you hadn't found me. Thank you_,' and Growlithe sat up and licked my chin. I hugged him.

'I'm just glad you're all right,' I replied.

'Hang on… what?' Gary interjected. I realised he was the only one who hadn't heard the actual story, only barks. So I told him briefly what had happened.

'_I just wanted to be a legendary, strong pokémon_,' Growlithe sighed, '_I failed, I'm a weakling. I don't know what to do next_.'

'Some pokémon are weaker than others, but they all have the same potential if they want to be strong,' I replied. 'If you want, I'd love to take care of you and help train you to the best you could be. You could still be a legend.'

Growlithe cocked his head and thought. '_A human trainer? I don't know how to train on my own. You'd help me_?' I nodded. Growlithe jumped up to lick me again.

'I guess that's a yes!'

'Someone tell me what happened!' Gary groaned.

'I caught a Growlithe, that's what,' I said, grinning.

Nurse Joy checked the puppy pokémon over a last time before letting me take him, and meanwhile I called Professor Elm and sent him my Sandshrew, Needles, to stay with my Yanma and Scyther he was keeping for me. With a new spot open on my team I was ready to catch the little guy.

Nurse Joy gave Growlithe some protein tablets to secure his condition. Then she took off the last bandages and Growlithe shook his fur out. When he did it seemed to throw glowing sparkles into the air. I picked out the special Luxury Ball from my pack. After all, the Growlithe deserved some comfort after his ordeal. I crouched and held the ball out and Growlithe touched it with his nose, allowing himself to be pulled in and captured.

'Awesome,' I smiled, 'he'll be such a great new pokémon.'

'I still have a question,' Gary looked at Nurse Joy, hands in his pockets, 'what happened to its fur? It was still that faded yellow colour. All the Growlithe I've ever seen, including mine, were orange.'

'Yes, it's strange, but it didn't seem to be a health problem at all. He's good as new now. My guess is, your Growlithe is just a special one.'

I broke into a smile, hoping Gary was jealous.


	22. Flying Duo

I don't own any copyrighted characters, ideas, plots or Pokmon used in this fanfiction.

**The Johto League**

**Chapter 22**

**Flying Duo **

**  
**  
The next few days were spent travelling westwards towards Olivine City. The weather was warming up, giving us long, bright, sunny days, perfect for training, and with summer in mind we'd decided to make for Olivine and its beach by the ocean. Our route took us through fields and small forests. Gary made sure to use all the light hours for more training, while Meowth preferred to lounge on my shoulders and have a cat-nap in the sun as we walked. When he wasn't sleeping, we chatted, and I asked how he came to be able to speak human and walk upright. It wasn't a strange innate talent like mine; he'd had to work and practice for over a year to do it. He loved to talk about the struggle of learning, as if showing off his tenacity, but avoided questions as to what the effort had been for.

During the travelling I had it in mind to catch another pokémon for my team. I didn't have the most balanced set of types in the world. However the area we worked our way across was craggy and jagged, home to quite rough pokémon. We'd seen herds of Tauros grazing and I certainly wasn't experienced enough to handle raising an unpredictable Tauros, not to mention the inevitable stampede if we tried to disrupt them. We saw the usual common Rattata and a few wild Meowth, who now seemed odd to me, running on all four legs. Magnemite also inhabited the area, but I couldn't see myself catching one of the floating expressionless doohickeys.

Gary and I decided that it was time to try out a practice battle on more fair terms. We both had acquired reasonably new team members. Standing apart on the dusty road, Gary sent his baby Elekid out to battle, and I responded in kind with my Growlithe, who burst from his black-and-red Luxury Ball in a burst of sparks.

The two inexperienced pokémon eyed each other, not sure what stance to oppose their enemy with, both unsure, being somewhere around the same young age.

'Elekid, use your thundershock!' Gary started off, and Elekid began rotating its arms to generate electricity.

'Go get 'em, Charlie!' I encouraged the hesitant puppy pokémon, using his new nickname. 'Go use bite attack!'

Growlithe bravely launched himself and tried to get his teeth into the charging Elekid, but received an electric shock on contact. Gary sniggered.

'Give it a low kick while the Growlithe's stunned!'

This resulted in more of a scuffle, the two rolling around in the dirt, trying to injure the other. Neither could manage to get the advantage or free themselves, so Gary and I actually started laughing. But we stopped, noticing a disturbance in some bushes to the side of the path. The fight was forgotten as we watched a Vulpix emerge onto the path. It trotted across our battleground, oblivious.

I grabbed for a spare pokéball. 'Maybe I can catch a Vulpix this time!' I said, running after it and tossing the pokéball once I was close enough. It bonked the Vulpix on the head and rolled off harmlessly. The little fox pokémon stared around anxiously, then fled.

'Huh, that was weird.'

Gary and I called back the pokémon we'd been fighting with and he tried to locate the escaping Vulpix.

'If you failed to catch it like that, must mean the pokémon already has an owner somewhere.' That made sense, but I couldn't see any people nearby.

'Stay here guys, I'll see where it went,' I said, already dashing after the fleeing pokémon. It hadn't gone far, and I spotted it trotting alongside a hedgerow. I wouldn't have thought I could out-run a Vulpix, but I closed in. It was glancing back anxiously as I ran up, breathlessly trying to talk it into calming down. I stretched out my hand as we ran, hoping it wouldn't attack, and brushed one of its tails. The Vulpix squeaked and put on a burst of speed.

Worried it would get away from me, I jumped, getting more worn out by the second. I nearly threw myself into the hedgerow, but in the process caught hold of the frightened fire pokémon. It didn't attack or respond to my words, but didn't object to being picked up. Tiredly, I trudged back to my team-mates with the runaway pokémon in my arms.

'Whoa, you caught it,' Gary blinked, 'in the non-pokéball sense.'

While the Vulpix wouldn't respond to me at all, she did murmur a few words to Meowth when he conversed in poke-language. She seemed to be lost and was able to tell us that her owner lived in the only house nearby, further down the road we'd been on. Quite cheerfully, we carried her there.

The house was easy to find. It was quaint, and the door was answered by an equally quaint gentleman. His face lit up when he saw us with the Vulpix.

'Oh, there's my girl!' he exclaimed, plucking her from my arms and petting her. She mewled happily. 'Do come in,' he welcomed us.

We ended up seated around a table in his living room as he explained that the Vulpix was his special companion, but happened to wander away from the house when a door was left open.

'Poor old girl, she's always after an adventure,' he chuckled, stroking the content Vulpix on his lap. 'She can't find her way back, you see, she's quite blind.'

'Blind?!' all three of us echoed. Having spoken at the same time, he thankfully didn't realise Meowth had joined in.

'Yes, nearly completely blind, but you don't need to shout, I'm not deaf,' he smiled. 'I'll need to thank all you kids properly for bringing her home to me.'

We followed him around to the back of his house, where surprisingly, there stood an aircraft hangar.

He pulled a switch and pearly industrial lights flickered on. The enormous building was filled with crates, boxes and unrecognisable pieces of metal, but our attention was caught by huge deflated balloon canvases, spread around and ready to be repacked and stored. He clearly had a great passion for these balloons.

'As you might be aware,' he explained, 'our town hosts the great hot air balloon race, and the competition is going to take place tomorrow. People here love flying in their balloons, and you get to use your own pokémon to try and reach the finish the fastest. If you kids are entering, it would be my pleasure to loan you one of my super-aerodynamic hyper-fast balloons for the duration of the race.'

As he spoke he handed us photos of his balloons in action. The huge balloons were shaped like pokémon, from hovering, bloated Hoppip to a big rounded Electrode. Meowth slightly broke his normal pokémon façade to grab these photos and stare at them avidly.

'I think we'd love to, sir, but we only just arrived and we haven't signed up for it,' I said.

'I should think they're still taking entrants now, but you'll have to hurry to the Pokémon Center!' he smiled.

We thanked him profusely and assured him that if we could sign up in time, we'd be back the next day to rent a balloon, and as soon as we were done, Meowth dragged us from the house. He'd become twitchy since seeing the photographs and couldn't speak if there were others around.

He pointed towards the town ahead and urged us forward. 'We're gonna enter that balloon competition if it's the last t'ing I do!'

I attempted to calm him down. 'How do we win exactly? I don't know anything about balloons, and I really doubt Gary does. We'd probably just be putting ourselves in danger.'

'We're going to win,' Meowth jumped up to my shoulder, bubbling with excitement, 'because I'm going to drive.'

We managed to sign up, all right, Meowth wouldn't let anything stand in the way of this competition.

'We'll have to be quick,' Gary commented, 'they'll be starting in a couple of hours, and everyone's already inflating their balloons.'

Walking along a dirt path with wild flowers and small houses, watching multicoloured balloons bounce into life on every side was not something I'd ever expected to experience, but I wasn't complaining.

When we reached the house the blind Vulpix was trying to comfort her owner, who greeted us very distraught.

'I'm sorry, they've all gone!' he said. 'This morning half the town turned up, wanting new balloons! The only ones I have left don't even fly...'

I worriedly asked him for an explanation, keeping Meowth quiet, as he was clearly itching to pepper the poor man with questions.

'It's odd that I didn't notice before, but all of my balloons aren't fit to fly. The fabric is torn, the baskets are flimsy, some of the support straps are completely gone… how could I not have noticed before?'

We tried to reassure him a little. Once we were outside the house I stopped my companions to think about this. Meowth seemed too upset to say anything.

'He's an expert balloon maker, he would have noticed if those balloons had something wrong with them before now…'

Gary caught onto my line of thinking. 'Somebody tried to influence the competition by sabotaging the balloons…'

'James?! What are you doing? You can't put that near the burner! And you can't tie it like that…'

'I'm sorry Jessie… all this balloon business is a lot harder without Meowth around…'

The two Rockets were frantically trying to prepare their balloon for flight as it inflated. The Meowth shaped balloon hovered above their heads, filling out as they argued.

'Jessie, I don't think we're going to have this ready in time… they're going to start without us…' James whined.

'Stop worrying so much. Even if they go, we made sure most of those balloons won't make it off the ground,' Jessie laughed.

They continued, unaware that Meowth and I had crept under the bushes next to them, out of sight but hearing every word. Gary had gone to the main lift-off area to warn as many people as possible about the danger of their balloons being sabotaged.

'So they did it, they're cheating,' I whispered angrily.

'Dose guys have crossed a line,' Meowth replied, nearly shaking with rage.

'What do you say we disqualify them. You cut the tether, I'll do the rest… on three.'

Meowth nodded.

Jessie was crowing about the amazing criminal feats they could perform when they won this contest. James couldn't fasten basket burner. Distracted and engrossed in their spat, they were taken by complete surprise when Meowth and I streaked towards them.

I threw my weight against the basket and Meowth made an elegant leap and slash at the rope holding the basket to the ground. It tore apart under his claws. I gripped the basket tightly and pulled myself in as it began to rise. Meowth jumped up James' body, confusing the already befuddled man, and sprung from his head up towards the basket, where I caught him.

James stared in disbelief and Jessie began yelling at us, but both were helpless and could only watch their Meowth-shaped balloon rise without them in it.

I heard the distant sound of a gong, signalling the start of the race. Far away a voice sounded over some loudspeakers.

Meowth was already in action, climbing around the basket to check the equipment. He seemed engrossed. I looked out over the landscape as we rose. I could already see for miles, and just ahead the balloons of the other participants were rising. Several of them popped or broke apart just after leaving the ground.

'So you really can fly this?' I questioned.

'I been flying this baby for years!' he assured, then his face fell. 'Darnit, Jimmy-boy didn't fix the burner up right… we got no fuel for it!'

'We need fire for it? No problem!' I unclipped a pokéball and opened it. 'C'mon Spike, help us keep this balloon up!'

My Quilava shook himself energetically, and took a moment to process the altitude. But he seemed to enjoy it, and took his place on the framework under the balloon. I watched him and Meowth set up a little system, where Quilava set alight his flame collar to heat the air, and Meowth would poke him on the butt to turn him off.

We rose ever higher and caught up to the remaining competition balloons. Our Meowth-shaped flier blended right in with the Magnemite, Fearow, and Chansey balloons flying around us. Meowth even seemed more alive than ever before, doing something he knew he was good at, a smile plastered on his face. He was enjoying it immensely, so were Quilava and I, but he was still completely determined to win. He guided the balloon safely around a mountain peak and we slowly advanced on the others as we approached the finish line.

As we passed the mountain I heard thunder. A storm could be disastrous, but the black clouds overhead weren't in the way of the course. A little shower of rain caught us as we sped on, but it was nothing that Spike couldn't handle. Just after that I glimpsed the finish line – a circle with an X inside shaved into the grass which needed to be hit by a marker, thrown from the balloon.

I looked at the two remaining balloons we had to pass. One of them was the image of a Pikachu. They seemed to have brushed closer to the storm, but were still powering ahead.

'Meowth, I think we could do this! There's only two balloons left.'

Meowth didn't share my optimism. 'The twoips are in dat Pikachu one.'

Well, he was right. I could just make out the people in the Pikachu balloon; it was Ash and his friends. Gary wouldn't be happy to find that they'd caught up to us, but for now, our balloon just had to catch up to theirs.

The occupants of the Pikachu balloon looked back. As we gained speed for the final push it was easier to make them out, and they didn't look at all happy to see our balloon. But their expressions changed to confusion when they saw me, not the Team Rocket members, in the basket. Their balloon was aided by a Noctowl, strapped to the balloon with a harness and guiding it. Ash's Noctowl, the one with shiny colouration, left a trail of sparkles as it flew. The other balloon we were tied with was designed in the likeness of a Fearow and pulled by one to match.

The finish was coming up below us. I held up the marker ball with its streamers, determined not to let Meowth down after coming this far. Meowth steered us expertly into an air current for a burst of speed, and Quilava was letting the balloon descend slightly, watching the finish of the race eagerly.

The Fearow balloon was piloted by the Vulpix owner, I realised, and a boy who must be his son. He was such a nice man, and doing it with his boy, he really deserved to win… but then so did Meowth, I'd never seen him so inspired and ambitious before.

I saw Ash lift his marker ball up, preparing to throw as the cross came closer and closer. The boy in the Fearow balloon did the same. I raised ours, carefully watching the target. We were all neck-and-neck.

'Now!' Meowth yelled, so I threw. So did the other two.

Ash's and the boy's balls hit the cross target together, both nestled slightly away from the exact middle. My ball came down a fraction of a second later, hit a perfect bulls-eye on top of the previous markers, and rolled away.

Ash and the Vulpix man's boy won in a tie.

Meowth set the balloon down in the finish area. I stared at the basket, feeling that I'd let him down. I returned Spike and Meowth and I packed the deflated balloon away into the basket, and just left it in the field. Team Rocket would probably reclaim it later.

'Meowth… I'm sorry,' I finally found the voice to say.

'Hey, it ain't your fault,' he replied, giving me an encouraging look. He wasn't elated, but he was happy. 'I loved gettin' to do dis. I felt so alive!'

I petted him and we realised we needed to find Gary again, but as we went to rejoin the competition group I found we were face to face with Ash and his friends.

'Oh, hi Ash,' I said automatically.

He blinked. 'You know my name?'

'Well, Gary talks about you guys,' I smiled, putting my hands in my pockets.

'We, er, haven't really known Gary to be the most tactful talker,' spoke up the older boy. 'By the way, hi. I'm Brock.'

He held out his hand, so I shook it. 'I'm Holly, it's interesting to finally meet you guys.'

'Yeah, you too. I'm Misty,' the red-headed girl with them joined in the introductions.

'Pikachu pika!' chipped in the electric pokémon from Ash's shoulder.

'Meowth dat's right!' my loudmouthed cat completed. This drew stares.

'So it was you!' Ash growled, recognising Meowth's identity from his speech.. 'We wanted to know how come you're using Team Rocket's balloon.'

'Well, we borrowed it from them,' I tried to explain as innocently as possible, 'because they broke other people's balloons on purpose, and Meowth really wanted to fly.'

'But you know that Meowth was part of Team Rocket too?' said Brock. 'I wouldn't trust him if I were you.'

'T'anks a lot, pal,' Meowth frowned, jumping up to my shoulder, 'no worries, dis cat's got himself a bona fide ownership collar.'

Ash scratched his face, looking curious. 'But… is it really okay going around with a Team Rocket pokémon and Gary?'

'It's just fine. Gary's good, he teaches me loads about being a trainer.'

Just at that point Gary found us. The conversation stopped and he gave Ash a cold look.

'Let's get going,' he said sharply.

I left with him, but turned back and waved to Ash's group to be friendly and polite. They didn't seem half bad. Gary actually seemed to be trying to be antisocial. He wasn't going to argue about going back to the Pokémon Center though, even if Ash's group was here too, it was the end of the day. And a tiring day at that.

'I still wish I'd won for you, Meowth,' I sighed, 'you tried so hard, and Spike too, but I should've thrown the marker earlier instead of aiming so much. Maybe if we'd had a fast balloon like we thought we'd get, you could've won.'

Meowth shook his head. 'It's only right that I got to use my old balloon. Nothin' coulda beat dat,' he grinned.


End file.
